Carson Studies Advisory Panel’s $28-Million Budget Proposal

The Carson City Council on Tuesday weighed new budget proposals from a blue-ribbon advisory committee, including recommendations for steep service reductions and layoffs.

Chief among the recommendations is that the city hold its expenditures to $28 million for the current fiscal year, the amount committee members and city officials estimated would be generated in city revenues.

The council, confronted by worried city employees and residents at a public hearing Tuesday, stressed that no final decision had been made regarding the proposed budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.

The tentative budget for 1990-91 is $3.7 million less than an initial budget proposed in May. Last year, the council passed a $34.8-million budget, but total expenditures amounted to only $29.9 million because of a hiring freeze and cuts in capital purchases.

The proposed 1990-91 budget incorporates suggestions of an advisory body made up of business leaders and was prepared by individual department heads. The next public hearing on the budget will be Sept. 18.

If the proposed spending plan is approved, about 98 full-time positions--almost a third coming from the Parks and Recreation Department--would be eliminated. Fifty-three of those positions are vacant.

Other budget reductions include replacing the staff cafeteria with a vending machine system, terminating city subsidies for a number of programs, including the Los Caballeros Band, and cutting the budgets of the Carson Symphony, drama program and dance program.

The Parks and Recreation Department, whose initial budget proposal of $9.1 million was pared down to $6.1 million, faces the largest cuts. Last year’s Parks and Recreation budget was $9.2 million.

The proposed cuts include eliminating the positions of four recreation center directors and 14 assistant directors. In addition, park supervision would be eliminated on Sundays during the school year, and hours of supervision would be limited during the summer months to noon to 5 p.m. The parks currently are staffed from 3 to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.

Several persons in the audience said Tuesday that a cut in recreational programs and staff would allow area gangs to take control of the city’s parks.

“If they decide to cut back on center directors and assistant directors, we will lose part of our community, meaning that the community members will lock themselves in the house because of gangs overrunning the parks,” said Beatrice Smith, a volunteer at Mills Park for the last 10 years.

Tony Ysais, a volunteer at Carriage Crest Park, said the center directors and assistants are “the ones that put kids in the right direction, the ones that keep the bad influence out.”

Although the committee proposed employee layoffs, it also recommended creating a budget analyst position, a suggestion that raised eyebrows at a budget workshop before Tuesday’s council meeting.

Martin Dunbar, adviser to the Centerview/Glen Avalon Homeowners Assn., told council members that the proposed analyst’s position was unnecessary. There are enough qualified personnel in the Finance Department to handle budget matters, Dunbar said.

Lorraine Oten, director of finance and administration, agreed.

“We have a position in the budget called senior accountant that is currently vacant,” Oten said. “I’m asking that that position be filled. I personally think that the senior accountant can also serve as budget analyst to make certain that departments stay within their budgets.”

The city has operated at a deficit the last three years, dipping into reserves to make up the difference, Oten said. Last year’s budget, approved halfway into the fiscal year, required taking $2.2 million out of reserves. The city currently has $7 million in reserve.

Mayor Vera Robles DeWitt established the committee in July, saying that outside expertise was needed to review budget concerns and come up with suggestions for raising revenue.

The committee report said the proposed cuts are not enough to solve the city’s long-term budget problems and suggested several measures to increase revenues. Among them are raising business license fees based on the change in the consumer price index since the fees were last raised; implementing a one-time business license processing fee of $100, and encouraging applications for temporary uses such as swap meets, recycling facilities and rental of under-utilized city property.

However, the committee did not recommend a utility users’ tax, saying it might have a harmful impact on economic development.

In explaining the city’s financial woes, Oten said sales tax revenues, on which the city depends for about half of its income, had not increased as much as anticipated.

In addition, expenditures for the last several years have risen almost twice as much as revenues, Oten said. For example, expenditures in 1985-86 were about $21 million. In 1989-90, expenditures were $29.9 million. Inflation, continued growth in services and the conversion in 1988 of 57 part-time employees and contract workers to full-time positions combined to account for the rise in expenditures, Oten said. The conversion resulted in additional employee salary and benefit costs.

“Revenues have not kept pace,” Oten said.

In addition, Oten said, state budget cuts this year cost Carson $1 million in anticipated revenue.