Oxnard Cuts $2.4 Million to Resolve Fiscal Woes : Deficit: ‘Spartan-like’ spending plan is expected to result in balanced books for the first time in five years.

The Oxnard City Council slashed $2.4 million from its two-year budget Tuesday, ending a series of budget sessions with enough cuts to balance its books for the first time in five years.

Saddled with chronic fiscal problems, Oxnard officials have made a practice of dipping into city reserves to cover budget deficits in recent years.

But Tuesday’s budget cuts, in combination with a series of other trims and revenue measures, may offset a projected $4.2-million shortfall facing the city.

“I think we’ve finally addressed our budget problem and hopefully cut off its ugly head,” Councilwoman Dorothy Maron said.

About $4.4 million in reductions earmarked by the council will be written into the 1991-93 budget, scheduled for approval in May. During this fiscal year, which began July 1, the city operated on a $60-million budget. Oxnard will switch to two-year spending plans next year.

The city will also raise about $1 million by increasing utility bills between 1% and 2% to pay for overhead costs that it had been absorbing until now, Assistant City Manager John Tooker said.

Even with the council’s sharp budget ax, the city will have to delve into its reserves for about $1 million to balance the first year of the two-year budget, Tooker said. But barring unexpected expenses, Oxnard will not have to borrow from its $7-million reserve fund in the second year. That would represent the first balanced budget since at least 1986, Mayor Nao Takasugi said.

“With the help of a little reserve money during our first year and a very Spartan-like budget, we should be able to take care of our problems,” Takasugi said.

On Tuesday, the ax fell on 21 city positions, some of which were already vacant, and on a series of city-sponsored programs that the council hopes will be picked up by the private sector.

Hardest hit was the Department of Parks and Recreation, which on Tuesday lost nine employees who maintain parks and median strips throughout the city and landscaping around the Channel Islands Harbor.

Overall, the department lost 29 positions during four months of budget cutting. Those reductions in staff included 10 of its 35 parks maintenance workers and four tree trimmers.

As a result of those reductions, the city will shut down all restrooms in city parks. “They were a nuisance anyway,” Councilman Michael Plisky said.

Also lost were all of the city’s recreation programs, from the city’s annual sports festival and the South Oxnard Cultural Center to a minibus that shuttles elderly residents throughout the city.

The council also decided that the city will no longer sponsor the Santa Claus Christmas float and the Fourth of July fireworks show. City officials said they hoped that businesses and nonprofit organizations will take over these programs.

“I think we’ll find out that our community is not as helpless as we think, and that somebody will step forward,” Plisky said. The Swift Memorial Foundation has already agreed to sponsor the senior minibus program next year.

The council approved a plan to transfer the City Auditorium and the Carnegie Museum to private hands. “The auditorium should be run by a board of directors made up by patrons of the arts who have access to wealth and can distribute the costs,” City Manager Vern Hazen said.

By the time the council was finished, the parks and recreation department’s annual $6.5-million budget had been trimmed to $5.2 million. “Our emphasis is to look at departments that are not critical to public safety,” Hazen said. “As a result of this emphasis, parks and recreation was hit the hardest.”

The Department of Public Works also bore a significant share of the burden, losing 19 positions. The latest round of cuts eliminated six managerial positions through a departmental restructuring.

The council decided that an additional maintenance job was expendable after removing 35 vehicles from the city’s fleet.

The public library system had been singled out by Hazen for major cuts, but it survived largely unscathed. The council spared the La Colonia and south Oxnard branches.

The main library will reduce its weekly hours of operation from 68 to 53. But it will move into its new downtown building by the end of the summer as scheduled.