200 Jobs May Die Along With Utility Tax in Anaheim

The recent City Council vote to rescind a citywide utility tax could put nearly 200 municipal jobs on the chopping block, including management positions, and could mean elimination of entire city departments, a councilman said Monday.

“We’re looking at devastating numbers,” Councilman William D. Ehrle said. “Now is the time to find out what we can do without.”

Ehrle, who last week withdrew his support for a 4% utility levy meant to cover a $14-million budget shortfall, said the layoffs were being considered in a possible equation to balance the city’s budget.

The councilman represented the swing vote in the dramatic move to rescind the utility tax, which would have effectively eliminated the threat to city workers and increased city revenues by more than $10 million.

“There is absolutely no question that some city services will have to be eliminated,” the councilman said, “and there is no question that some city employees will have to find other work.”

Ehrle said that as many as 200 city workers could lose their jobs, based on estimates from the city manager’s office.

Ehrle said that in any cost-cutting discussions he will ask that budget planners evaluate middle-management positions and recommend that consideration be given to eliminating “non-essential services,” such as the city’s Public Information Department and commuter services office.

News of the impending cutbacks was swirling through City Hall, where Bret Colson, information department manager, said Monday that the cuts were “the only topic of conversation.”

“One of the greatest benefits of working with the government in the past has been stability,” Colson said. “Now that that is threatened, it is really shaking people down to the core.”

The information office maintains three full-time positions and has proposed a $315,424 budget for 1991-92.

“At this point, we have no idea what’s going to happen,” Colson said.

Mayor Fred Hunter said that the police department has already been asked to come up with $5 million worth of cuts, which could effectively do away with some of the city’s crime prevention programs.

“When people see how severe the cuts are going to be in the city there is going to be an outcry, I just know it,” Hunter said.

John Lower, the city’s traffic and transportation manager, said that any effort to eliminate the commuter office, its two full-time workers and a $294,819 budget could prove difficult.

Lower said the office was created by mandate of the Air Quality Management District to encourage car-pooling among municipal employees. The office also helps coordinate ridership programs with Anaheim businesses. Elimination of the office would subject the city to fines of $25,000 for each day the office was closed.

“I’d think (the council) would think twice about making major cuts here,” Lower said.

Ehrle said that before decisions are made on layoffs, planners should also evaluate what he described as a “screwed-up accounting system” in which individual city departments are charged for work performed by city employees from other city departments. For example, Ehrle said that if employees from the Public Works Department are needed to perform work for the Police Department, a deduction would be made from the police budget.

“It’s a huge accounting system, and I think we are not being cost-efficient,” Ehrle said.

The councilman said the city’s plans for the proposed monorail or people-mover system and its participation in Disney’s $3-billion city expansion project should be studied too.

“If we’ve got seven people working on Disney, maybe we don’t need that many,” he said.

Sharon Ericson, president of the Anaheim Municipal Employees Assn., said her phone had not stopped ringing Monday with calls from anxious employees wanting answers about their jobs.

“It’s going to be as disastrous as they have been saying all along,” Ericson said. “The police and fire departments are going to get hit too. There is no way they can keep police and fire whole. Everybody is so depressed.

“I will jump up and down if (council members) think they are going to choose what’s politically good for them to cut,” the association president said.