Oxnard Council Uses Windfall to Avoid Budget Shortfall : Finances: A one-time infusion of $1.6 million and the elimination of 18 1/2 jobs help the council balance its books. But the city manager warns that the task will be tougher next year.

Oxnard City Council members on Monday came up with the money to balance a $60-million budget for the next fiscal year but expressed fear that the short-term financial solution may only delay future cuts in city personnel and services.

The council was able to reduce a projected $2.8-million deficit in the 1990-91 fiscal year with the help of about $1.6 million in one-time revenue windfalls, including part of a rebate from the state-run public employees retirement program.

As recently as a week ago, City Manager David Mora had recommended that the city eliminate 64 positions to help avoid the projected deficit.

But at its special budget meeting Monday, the council was able to balance the budget by eliminating 18 1/2 positions and making select cuts to some supplies and services.

Of those full-time and part-time positions, the council decided to cut seven from the Police Department, 5 1/2 from the Parks and Recreation Department, two from the Finance Department and four from the Public Works Department.

The council spared some early targets for cuts, including the Carnegie Art Museum, two emergency rescue squads in the Fire Department and a six-person traffic enforcement team in the Police Department.

The council is expected to give final approval of the budget today.

But Mora predicted that the city will continue to face revenue shortfalls during the next two years and said the council had only delayed inevitable personnel and service cuts for a year.

“You will, if you don’t take reductions this year, find yourself making these reductions next year,” Mora warned the council as the budget hearing began.

Mayor Nao Takasugi agreed after the budget meeting concluded that the council used onetime revenue windfalls to delay inevitable budget cuts.

“I don’t think any of us are thrilled with it,” he said.

The windfalls include a $1.4-million rebate from the state-run public employees retirement program that the city received earlier this year. The rebate was the result of successful investments made with the city’s retirement funds.

The council decided Monday to spend $800,000 of the rebate toward reducing the budget and the remaining $600,000 to avoid layoffs by continuing the salaries of employees while they are shuffled to other city jobs.

The council also decided to save $337,500 by putting off a five-year, $3-million project to remove asbestos from several city buildings. The city had earmarked $457,000 this year to begin the project, but the council decided to set aside only $120,000 toward removing the asbestos.

The city expects to gain another $200,000 next year in proceeds from Proposition 111, a gasoline tax measure designed to provide local governments with money to repair deteriorating streets.

The council also saved an additional $264,000 by funding the Economic Development Department with money from the Redevelopment Agency, which makes money through assessment fees, and not from the general budget.

The windfall revenues reduced the projected deficit by $1.6 million. The council then pared an additional $1.2 million in reductions from a list of possible cuts recommended by the city manager.

The council’s personnel cuts include two landscape workers and a park ranger from the Parks and Recreation Department; a purchasing officer and an accounting position from the Finance Department; a records clerk, an account clerk, a property clerk and a four-person drunk-driving task force from the Police Department; and three street sweeping personnel and a pavement management specialist from the Public Works Department.

In the past two weeks, citizens and department heads have lobbied the council to spare programs that they feel are vital to the city.

The loudest outcry from the community was prompted by Mora’s recommendation to close the Carnegie Art Museum, which costs the city $140,000 a year and employs one part-time and two full-time workers.

Supporters of the museum, including the Oxnard Cultural and Fine Arts Commission, warned the council that once the museum is closed it would be almost impossible to persuade other museums to loan art exhibits to the Carnegie in the future.

Mora had also recommended eliminating the city’s $398,000 annual contribution to the Oxnard Convention and Visitors Bureau, which employs six full-time staff members. Instead, the council decided Monday to contribute $200,000 to operate the bureau for six months while the city studies the possibility of adding another 2% to the city’s 9% bed tax to pay for the bureau’s annual costs.

The council has until July 24 to place such a tax measure on the November ballot, city officials said.