City Workers Face Time Off Without Pay : Cutbacks: S.D. city manager offers plan to help make up for projected revenue shortfall of $16.2 million.

Saying vanishing revenues have “taken us past the point of taking meat off the bones, we’re now taking bones off the body,” San Diego’s city manager announced a broad range of spending cuts Friday that include asking city employees to take time off without pay.

City Manager Jack McGrory said about 4,000 city employees have been asked to take up to 26 days of leave without pay during the current fiscal year because of a projected revenue shortfall of $16.2 million that may grow depending on state budget cuts.

McGrory said the city will make expenditure cuts of $13.4 million and use “fund transfers” to plug the remaining deficit of $2.8 million in the general fund. He said an additional $2 million will be made up through city employees taking time off without pay to offset further cuts from Sacramento.

He said the city would be forced to re-evaluate its policy of not imposing layoffs if the voluntary effort fails to generate the $2 million in savings. He said the program would not be offered to “police on patrol or firefighters in stations,” so as not to minimize services.

He said city employees have not faced layoffs since Proposition 13, which “forced us to lay off a substantial number of librarians.” He said layoffs may also depend on the “latest word” from Sacramento as state lawmakers ponder more than $300 million in cuts to cities.

McGrory blasted officials in Sacramento, saying proposed cuts of $200 million in redevelopment areas, mostly in the form of low-income housing, “are very ironic after what we experienced in Los Angeles,” referring to riots in the wake of the Rodney G. King verdicts.

“These cuts will have a damaging, significant impact on public safety in every city in the state,” he said. “Low-income housing is one of the state’s biggest needs and a constitutional provision. I don’t know, legally, how the state can make such cuts.”

McGrory said San Diego planned to join Los Angeles and other large cities in asking for an audit of state sales tax revenues, which he said are dramatically lower than figures being released by the state controller’s office.

“I have a press release from the controller’s office saying state sales tax revenues are up 12% for the (fiscal) year,” he said. “Well, we haven’t seen a 12% increase in sales tax revenue here, and the San Diego region has been in much better shape than the L.A. region.

“Some of us are very concerned that they’re keeping some of the funds up there to try to balance their own budget, so we intend to take a good look at it.”

McGrory said the “continuing, deteriorating condition of the economy” had inflicted “an unfortunate impact” on projected tax revenues, forcing the budget revision for the 1993 fiscal year.

He said he expected an even gloomier forecast in the 1994 fiscal year, which begins next July.

“My honest reaction is, I don’t see it getting any better,” McGrory said. “Even if it starts to get better, it will be a very slow recovery. It is important for us to step up quickly and cut expenditures the moment revenues are reduced. I would like to think it is going to get better, but I’m sorry, I don’t see it.”

He listed some of the major cuts:

* $350,000 from the city attorney’s office.

* $885,000 from the San Diego Fire Department, mostly in the area of new equipment purchases.

* $739,900 from the San Diego Library system, meaning he will not fill 12 1/2 vacant positions.

* $200,000 out of the library’s automation system.

* $750,000 from the Park and Recreation Department, mostly in maintenance. He said street and building maintenance would “suffer the most” under the cuts.

* $411,000 from the city planning department.

* $1,696,000 from the Police Department budget. McGrory said a reduction of $696,000 would allow the city to eliminate 18 positions ordinarily filled by new recruits from the city’s police academy.

An additional $1 million will come in the form of “non-personnel” reductions, meaning “restricted vehicle use, scheduled equipment replacement, maintenance and repair, and ammunition.”

The city manager’s report said the cuts “will make operations more difficult, but every effort will be made to minimize the impact on enforcement and investigations.”

McGrory said he plans to transfer $1.294 million from the gasoline tax to the general fund, which will curtail some road and bridge maintenance programs. He said the cuts were tailored to have the least impact on police and fire protection and refuse collection, and the most impact on street and building maintenance.

He said the “targeted population” likely to be affected by the time-off-without-pay request would be 4,000 of the city’s 10,000 employees, or 1.6% of the total salaries and wages in city government.

He said the time off would probably take the form of four-day, nine-hour-a-day work weeks, which would generate a 10% pay cut, albeit with health care and other benefits fully intact. He said some employees have expressed interest in taking one day off every two weeks.