City Council OKs Budget, Avoids Cuts in Many Services : Finances: Police and fire protection are maintained in the $1.58-billion spending plan. City manager calls the action a ‘dress rehearsal’ because a cut in state funding will alter the blueprint.

The Long Beach City Council approved a $1.58-billion budget for the new fiscal year that started Wednesday, and avoided making deep cuts in police, fire, recreational and social services.

But City Manager James C. Hankla quickly labeled Monday’s budget action a “dress rehearsal.”

“We’re going to be back at it in the near future,” he said.

The budget, approved on a 5-2 vote, includes no raises for city workers and would basically duplicate the services of the previous year, Hankla said.

But he said Long Beach stands to lose as much as $32 million in state money depending on how the governor and the Legislature deal with California’s recession-related budget problems.

That state money would usually be funneled to the city’s $291-million general fund, which covers employee salaries and other expenses in police, fire and other key departments.

Hankla recommended in May that the City Council reduce spending by eliminating 13 police officers and 14 civilians from the Police Department. In addition, 11 firefighters and a fireboat would be cut from the Fire Department budget.

The sworn police positions are vacant, as are most of the civilian positions, budget manager Bob Torrez said. There would have been no layoffs, because civilian police employees and firefighters would have been reassigned, he said.

But the council decided to maintain police and fire staffs in the shadow of riots that followed the verdict in the Rodney G. King case.

They also said it would be premature to make such cuts before a decision is reached on state funding.

“Our No. 1 priority and responsibility . . . is public safety,” said Councilman Les Robbins, a sheriff’s deputy.

The city is facing tough financial times even if state funding cuts do not materialize. Because of the recession, sales taxes and other income have dropped, Torrez said.

The council voted to use about $6 million in surplus pension funds to pay for police, fire and other city services this year. That includes spending an additional $311,000 to put two more Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department patrols in the north and northeastern parts of the city.

Councilmen Wallace Edgerton and Clarence Smith were absent for the final vote on the budget. Vice Mayor Jeffrey A. Kellogg and Councilman Warren Harwood voted against it.

Kellogg said he could not vote for a budget that did not make significant, immediate cuts to deal with the almost certain loss of some state funding.

“We can sit here and deny it,” Kellogg said. “We don’t have the revenue coming in that we want.”

Harwood said he voted against the budget because the council approved a proposal to reorganize the city’s paramedic operation. Seven full-time paramedics will be reassigned as lower-paid firefighters/emergency medical technicians, and the city will rely more on private ambulances to save about $580,000 a year.

Harwood said he fears that paramedic service in his district in North Long Beach will be inadequate. But the council approved the change, saying the new paramedic plan could be revised if problems arise.

Other proposed cuts were rejected by the council. They voted to keep:

* $177,579 for the Neighborhood and Historic Preservation Office

* $200,410 for recreation programs

* $450,000 in grants to local social service agencies.

Long Beach’s general fund reserve was boosted this year by a one-time windfall of $31 million from the state Public Employees Retirement System.