Budget Problems 2008-09, 2009-10
By Theresa Acerro, president of SWCVCA
On December 1, 2008 the interim City Manager and the Budget Director held a public workshop about the grim news that Chula Vista has a $3.9 million deficit for 2008-09 and is expected to have a $20 million dollar deficit for each of the next five years. (Read Scott Lewis’ article on December 2, 2008)
This meeting at the Civic
Center Library had maybe 50 people in attendance. This is the Memo
issued by Scott Tulloch the interim City Manager. It contains a long list of
proposed cuts in services , which would be the result of up to 135 layoffs.
This obviously would
be a total disaster for the city of Chula Vista. Being one of the largest
employers, laying off people would just increase the downward economic spiral
in the city. Laying off almost all the custodians, gardeners, painters, IT
people and other maintenance people would lead to deferred Maintenance, which
would cause the city and its new buildings to totally fall apart.
Treasurer’s
Explanation of How expensive it is going to be to have to restructure debt
payments. (The city’s considerable debt (over $200 million) for the Police
Station and Civic Center requires over 200 development permit fees a year to
service it. There have been 24 this year.)
The meeting at the Eastlake Library had over 80 people
who were extremely mad and made their feelings known. For the lack of $290,000
the library department is proposing closing the Eastlake Library, which is now
open evenings and weekends at Eastlake High School. This would mean that there
would be NO libraries east of 805, but many, many people.
On December 4, 2008
from 6PM until after 1AM the city council heard a three
hour presentation from staff and listened to over 100 members of the
public.
The community was
organized. There were well over 500 people attending or trying to attend the
meeting. A large group of people were there to protest the closing of the
Eastlake Library. Another large group were there to protest the closing of the Nature
Center. (Susan Watry’s
letter) Another large group attended to protest the cutting of the Stretch
and Dash after school programs, now run by the library.
Others were protesting the closing of the
Parkway
Gym and pool. There are only two city run pools in the entire city.
Southwestern College also has a pool. 13 high school swim and water polo teams,
numerous diving and swim clubs, all the 4th graders in the city, as
well as the public have only these pools for lessons, classes, recreational
swimming and competitions.
The crowd was very vocal and noisy. Many
people stayed and talked, although many gave up and went home before having the
opportunity to speak.
I spoke and I suggested these options for
preventing layoffs. The council was not interested.
(The job of the city council is to protect and promote the quality of life of the residents and small businesses in the city.
Our jobs housing balance is 15% or
more out of balance because members of the city council over the years have
accommodated housing developers wanting to change the zoning on their
properties from commercial, industrial or resort to residential.
This has led to the city’s inability
to pay the cost of ongoing maintenance and staffing of libraries, recreation
centers, police and fire. Houses do not provide sufficient income to pay for
all the services they demand and need. The pace of housing development in this
city has been unsustainable for years.
At the time of annexation the
Montgomery area had sufficient commercial and industrial businesses to provide
for services for three times its existing population. Today you still can walk
a block and a half on south Broadway and visit more than 70 functioning small
businesses. This is southwestern Chula Vista. Unfortunately eastern Chula Vista
has been developing at an unsustainable rate of housing with low wage retail.
The council needs to stop listening to
developers and defend the long-range plans for an improved jobs housing balance
in its General Plan. It also needs to accept that the community will not accept
a peaker power plant within 350 feet of a home and 1300 feet of a school nor
the closing of the Nature Center, nor the closing of a pool, nor the closing of
a library, nor the curtailment of the important quality of life programs of our
Library and Recreation Departments. These are quality of life issues.
It is also clearly unacceptable to
even consider laying off 135 people and sending our economy into a greater
downward spiral. Deferring maintenance by eliminating virtually all the people
who do it is also a recipe for disaster. There are hard decisions to be made,
but protecting the existing residents and small businesses must be the top
priority.)
There is no need to lay-off 135 people. What is
needed is leadership in obtaining cooperation between the residents, the
council and the city’s employees to get the budget back in balance. Each has to
give a little in order to make most of the cuts mentioned by the interim City
Manager unnecessary.
First of all it is totally irresponsible for the
mayor to still have on her budget a Chief of Staff (COS) costing the city
$184,788 a year. This is enough money to keep the Parkway pool open. And an
Environmental consultant costing $124,903 a year. For a total of $309,691 which
is more than the $290,000 needed to keep the Eastlake library open. The mayor
also has a Constituent Services person who should be dealing with the
constituent inquiries that the Chief Of Staff deals with when he is not
visiting with planner friends or planning to teach a certification class for
planners or working for his former employer on company time. The Environmental
consultant was meant to help with California Coastal Commission issues when the
former mayor was on the CCC. No one is now on the CCC so this job needs to be
eliminated. (The mayor froze it last year, but never cut it.)
Eliminating the Redevelopment Advisory Committee,
which costs $87,229 in staff time and represents no one living or working in
the redevelopment area and the Chula Vista Redevelopment Corporation which
costs $139,533 a year and essentially duplicates what the council does as the Redevelopment
Agency. This could provide enough money to keep Parkway open.
Keeping the perfectly competent interim City
Attorney and interim City Manager until the economy improves would save (City Attorney
$329,708, City Manager $371,338) $701,046- more than enough to keep the Nature
Center open. We cannot afford to fill these positions in this economy. It was
irresponsible of the city council to hire a Planning Director from Santee for
$241,200 and a Fire Chief from Iowa for $280,055 when we had two perfectly
competent men filling these positions in an interim basis—both of whom are
still employed by the city. A Hiring freeze has to apply to all positions to be
effective. This $521,255 extra dollars the council choose to spend
unnecessarily is more than the $400,000 the important after school Dash and
Stretch programs cost. These programs are a lot more important to the children
and families in this city than having someone without an interim tag filling positions
that were being filled quite competently.
All these suggestions would save $1,237,499 yearly.
The other $2.7 million could come from Redevelopment as a partial repayment of
the $26 million they owe the city. This would take care of this year’s deficit
of $3.9 million.
As for the $20 million for next year: This will take
the cooperation of all the city’s employees and the residents.
The employees negotiated and were granted the cost
of living wages for 5 years in the future in good faith. They should not have
to give them up, but in order to avoid lay offs it seems to me it would be
perfectly reasonable for them to agree to delay receiving the promised
increases until such time as the city had sufficient funds to pay the raises
without making any additional cuts to services.
COS $184,788
Env. Consultant $124,903
RAC $87,229
CVRC $139,533
City Attorney $329,708
City Manager $371,338
$1,237,499
delaying pay increase $6,500,000
employee retirement $6,616,200 aver. Of 6%, (aver 5% $5,513,500, 8%
$8,821.600)
$14,353,699
¼ cent sales tax $6,400,000
$20,753,699
If employees making more than $100,000 (average pay) and all the council members would pay BEFORE TAXES the entire 8% or 9%(public safety) of the employee contribution to the retirement fund and lower paid people paid a lesser percentage to make an average of 6% we would have $14,353,699 saved.
I would certainly be willing to pay an
extra ¼% sales tax for 5 years or so it will take economy to improve if the
employees were willing to do their part and the council started acting more
responsibly and making it a strongly enforced policy to get the city ‘s jobs
and housing back in balance. This would give us the $20 million needed with no
lay-offs or program cuts.