City Considers Cutting Fire Battalion Chiefs, Police Captains and City Attorney

The Pacifica City Council considered laying off high-ranking city staff, including three fire battalion chiefs, one to two police captains and the city attorney, at a meeting Wednesday night. 

Other potential cuts to city staff and services are numerous and very tentative. 

At the start of the budget study session, City Manager Stephen Rhodes presented council with two rudimentary lists of expenditure reductions that could be made in the wake of the failure of the proposed . 

One list would cut $1 million out of the city’s expenditures, leaving a reserve fund of about $500,000. The other would cut about $1.5 million and would leave a reserve fund of just under $1 million. In the second scenario, which is the preferred option, the city would be left with an annual deficit around $600,000. These lists represented an across-the-board reduction to city departments, including fire and police.

They were only a jumping-off point for budget talks, however, which began when Councilman Pete DeJarnatt was asked for his thoughts.

“Cut the [fire] battalion chiefs completely (there are three),” he said.  “I don’t want to do this. I like the guys, but at the very least, cut two of three, maybe a firefighter. That would get us to where we need to be with fire.”

Rhodes said that laying off all three battalion chiefs would save the city about $300,000 annually—considerably less than their three salaries combined—because Pacifica is reimbursed part of their salaries through the joint powers agreement for fire services with Daly City and Brisbane.

DeJarnatt then moved on to the police department.

“Eliminate a captain in the police department,” he said. “I don’t know what else we’ll have to do there since we just created that position a couple of years ago.” 

DeJarnatt then ran down a list of the other departments and city expenses with few decided nods to a cut.

“How we can get the cuts we need from some of the other departments, I don’t have a clue,” DeJarnatt said. “As far as everything else goes, everything is on the table.”

Councilwoman Mary Ann Nihart seconded that sentiment and agreed with DeJarnatt that the city should take a look at laying off battalion chiefs and perhaps a police captain or two.

She was the first councilperson to mention laying off City Attorney Cecilia Quick and contracting out some aspects of the Public Works Department.

“If you want to go ahead and look at the police in that kind of way, before we get to that, we talked about [contracting out work] in public works and also, would we really save money if we looked at the city attorney?”

Quick’s projected budget in fiscal year 2011-12 is over $600,000. In the past few fiscal years, her actual expenditures have exceeded that. Public Works spent over $2 million in the last budget cycle.

Councilman Len Stone indicated that he’d like to see enough cuts to balance the budget. That would mean that with the potential for small pockets of revenue yet to be discovered, another $500,000 in cuts would need to be made. 

And that heightened level of expense reduction might happen. Members of the council said at the meeting Wednesday night that it’s unlikely the city will try to pass a utility users tax, which is part of their preferred option in the five-year budget plan. That means they’ll have to make cuts beyond the $1.5 million plan now or in a year.

Rhodes said Wednesday night that the city would need to cut the equivalent of at least 10-14 full time employees out of its staff to make ends meet.

Nihart also brought up the possibility of capping or completely doing away with cafeteria plan for council, which can cost the city about an extra $10,000 annually per councilmember.

In the end, however, this meeting was only beginning of what will likely be a lengthy and dynamic process leading to a new, reduced city budget.

All councilmembers indicated that they would like to see cut scenarios played out in greater detail in order to understand what impacts a reduction in service or positions will really have before making decisions.

“I’m interested to see what staff comes back with,” said Stone. “The next meeting is going to be a lot more in depth.” 

After the talks of layoffs, the crowd shuffling out of city council chambers was pretty glum.

“It’s sad for everyone,” said newly hired Planning Director George White. “It’s a reduction of people that will be commensurate reduction in service.”

There will be a Financing City Services Task Force meeting tomorrow night at the Pacifica Police Station at 6:30p.m. Budget talks will continue there.