Council OKs Budget With More Social Services : Finance: Police allotment will be increased 20%, while investment in redevelopment projects will drop.

Displaying a shift in priorities, the Bell Gardens City Council approved an $18-million operating budget this week that will offer more in community and social services while minimizing capital improvement and redevelopment projects.

The council allocated nearly $1 million for new social programs and services in the 1992-93 fiscal year, Finance Director David Bass said.

“For now, we are going to stop building things and start shifting money toward doing things,” Bass said. “We don’t need any more land, we’re going to focus on services.”

Eleven new jobs will be created, including five Police Department positions to focus primarily on the city’s gang problems. Two detectives will be added to the special detail established in May to identify gang members and cruise the streets to break up gang activity. Two counselors will be hired to try to discourage youngsters from joining gangs and to work with others who joined gangs after having family or school problems.

The Police Department’s budget will grow 20% to $6 million, making up about a third of the city’s total operating budget.

Among the other new services funded by the council:

* A city-run job bank to help unemployed residents find work.

* A program to lure new businesses to the city, which depends heavily on tax revenues generated by the Bicycle Club casino.

The 1992-93 general fund, which pays for the costs to run the city, reflects the spending priorities of four new council members who were elected after leading a recall drive to oust four council members last December. The four new members--Josefina (Josie) Macias, Frank B. Duran, Rodolfo (Rudy) Garcia and George T. Deitch--had accused the council of being insensitive to the community’s needs. During the April campaign, the newcomers vowed to push for more social services.

“We have a lot of people who need service in this city,” Deitch said, referring to the city’s 11.2% unemployment rate and high poverty rates. “They have been ignored in the past, and we are trying to fix that.”

The new budget did not allocate money for acquiring and improving land through the redevelopment agency. The council last year budgeted $1.7 million for these purposes, Bass said. Although the redevelopment agency has its own budget, it receives general fund money through various loans, he said. The funding allotment for capital improvements also was reduced--from $7.7 million to $6.6 million.

Those reductions caused the general budget totals to drop about $1 million from $19.1 million last year.

Bass estimated that Bell Gardens could lose about $800,000 in revenues if the financially strapped state decides to keep revenues that traditionally are passed along to cities, but he said the city’s economic health remains strong.

While many other Southeast cities are struggling to balance their budgets, Bell Gardens receives a major infusion of revenue from the Bicycle Club. The city expects to receive more than $11 million in revenue from the club in the new fiscal year--61% of the city’s general fund.

Both Bass and Deitch warned, however, that the city should not come to depend too much on card club revenues and should be searching for alternative sources of revenue.

“If the card club closes up tomorrow, we would be in dire straits,” Deitch said.