‘Look deeper at budget cuts’

• Fire, police and roads on hatchet table, but receive little public focus

“City departments cannot absorb cuts of this magnitude without reducing the quality and level of services the public has come to expect. The community has a right to know what to expect regarding service levels next year.”
- City Manager Walt Wrede

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

Given the plight of Homer’s city budget and the cost of snow removal and management, the city was fortunate that first snows didn’t fly until well into November this year. Sand, fuel to operate snow plows and numerous man hours were saved by gaining mother nature’s reprieve this year from the usual October snowfalls.
Homer City Manager Walt Wrede sent out a notice last week about the deeper, more far-reaching cuts proposed in the 2010 city general operating budget. Much of the town discussion so far on the fiscal year 2010 budget has focused on cuts to the Boys and Girls Club, to Homer Community Schools and the Kachemak Bay West Campus lease. However, Wrede says cuts in police, fire and public works are likely to leave a deeper impact.
“I don’t know that we’ve done a good job of describing police, fire and public works cuts,” Wrede said Friday. “I feel like we have an obligation to let people know, to get this information to them. We’re lucky it hasn’t snowed until now. That’s a big savings to the budget.”
Due to a sharp reduction in sales tax revenues over the past two years – a trend that isn’t going to just go away – the city has slashed its budget 22 percent in the past two years from $12.9 million to $9.9 million.
More budget talks are coming up when the Homer City Council meets Nov. 23, with the deadline for the Homer City Council to pass the budget set for Dec. 14. The new budget year begins Jan. 1.
Between now and the budget’s passage, Wrede said he hopes public discussions will focus on the whole picture, and not just the issues surrounding nonprofits. Among the 8.5 positions eliminated by the city – a 10 percent reduction in the city’s workforce – is one police officer.
“There will certainly be a slow down with police response times,” Wrede said. “We only have 11 officers. If you’re trying to cover 24-7, that’s three 8-hour shifts a day. If one officer is out sick, or one is gone for training, there will be times when we don’t have police at the station.”
Wrede wrote in a press release that, “Most of the discussion about budget cuts so far, both in the media and at public hearings, has been focused upon the impacts these cuts will have on nonprofit organizations, the Community Schools Program and the University.”
Wrede acknowledged that these cuts will have “serious and perhaps lasting impacts on those organizations and the overall quality of life in Homer.” However, those cuts only amount to approximately $300,000.
“The remainder of the cuts ($2.6 million over the past two years), have been absorbed by the General Fund departments,” he explained.
Wrede said the only city department focused on in budget discussions to date is the Homer Public Library. Cuts include shutting down the library on Mondays.
So what kinds of changes are Homer residents actually going to see? “That is what I wanted to do with this,” Wrede said. “I wanted to let the public know that they can anticipate slower response times, and maybe we won’t be able to get to the roads and sidewalks as quickly.”
The city council hasn’t had a chance to weigh in on the budget yet, as their budget proposals are due at the Nov. 23 meeting. One option to avoid cuts to crucial city services is to dip into the $4.4 million general fund reserve. Auditors recommend cities should have at least 50 percent of their budget in reserve to cover them in hard times. The reserve is just about par with that amount. Wrede said the last time the city drew from that savings account was in 2004. And, for short-term solution, it’s not a bad idea.
Councilmember David Lewis said he wouldn’t be opposed to borrowing from the general reserve “this once.” His focus now is on how to restore services the public voted on, such as Homer Community Schools and the library. Another idea worth considering is asking those outside city limits to pay for services they use in the city, such as the library.
“But if we don’t come up with other funding methods for these programs, it’s more like putting a Band Aid on it now, while hoping to come up with other ways of funding,” Lewis said.
Another idea, which would need to be placed on the Kenai Peninsula Borough ballot by a community group, is to make a ballot proposition designating a mil rate to help pay for city services such as the library and community schools, Lewis said.
“It would be a way of paying for services everyone uses, but the city is the entity paying for it,” he explained.
Councilmember Beth Wythe, perhaps the most fiscally conservative member of the council, expressed reluctance to tap into the reserve.
“It is the responsibility of the council to provide a balanced budget, which implies that revenue and expenses are balanced, not that revenue is subsidized by the reserves,” Wythe wrote in an e-mail to the Homer Tribune. “The reserve is there to cover un-budgeted revenue shortfalls, such as the several hundred thousand dollars anticipated this year.”
The City of Homer Finance Department has more information now than a few months ago when the budget was proposed, Wrede said. A look at the sales tax revenue numbers for October shows an 18 percent drop over last year.
“That’s not good news there,” Wrede said. “But we do still feel comfortable with our revenue projections.”
The General Fund is made up of the police (including dispatch, jail, animal control), fire (including emergency medical services), public works (including parks and campgrounds) and administrative departments. The administration department includes the library, finance, planning, personnel, and city clerk divisions. It also includes information technology and community schools.
As the council heads into budget rounds, the city manager has asked each of the department heads to provide a brief written report to the council describing how the proposed cuts will impact their departments and the ability to deliver services. These reports are not intended to go into great detail about specific cuts, but rather to provide the community with an idea of what public service related changes it can anticipate over the next year.
Homer residents are encouraged to read these reports.
Wrede’s report states: “The latest round of budget cuts will significantly impact health and public safety, infrastructure development and maintenance, the economy and the overall quality of life in the community.
“For example, the Public Works Department reports that it will be forced to reduce road grading, ditch maintenance, dust control and road repair in the summer. Snow removal, sidewalk and trail clearing, and sanding will also be slower in the winter. Parks and trails maintenance, landscaping, and Pioneer Avenue beautification efforts will be reduced or eliminated. The police department reports that patrols and investigations will be reduced, response times could suffer, the dispatch office will be understaffed and there will be times when no officers are on duty. The fire department projects that it will have a difficult time maintaining critical equipment and supplies, response times may be slower, training and volunteer support will suffer, and there will be times when the department is not fully staffed 24/7 with a paid firefighter/EMT. The library will also be closed on Mondays.”
Wythe and other councilmembers agree that decisions will be difficult in the coming weeks.
“As the revenues continue to diminish, the time comes for making some very hard – and often not very popular decisions – about what stays and what goes,” Wythe said. “As these decisions are made, it is important for each member of the council to fully consider the primary focus of government-provided services.”
“We are a very small community and, as such, it is difficult for the city government to sustain many services which are generally social in nature (Boys and Girls Club, nonprofit funding, etc.),” she continued. “When making budget reductions results in the reduction of positions, then even the basic service levels become more difficult. The time required for police to report to a call increases because there are fewer officers to respond. The time it takes to clear the streets following a snow fall increases because there are fewer operators and overtime hours are limited…”
The full set of reports can be obtained from the city clerk’s office, or by going to the city Web site at www.ci.homer.ak.us.

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Posted by Newsroom on Nov 18th, 2009 and filed under Headline News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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