San Diego Has Further Budget Surgery : Finances: About 4,000 employees are asked to take up to 26 days off without pay to help city reduce projected shortfall of $16.2 million.

Saying that vanishing revenues have “taken us past the point of taking meat off the bones, we’re now taking bones off the body,” the 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 this 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 will be forced to re-evaluate its policy of no 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 reduce those 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 will also depend on what transpires in Sacramento, where state lawmakers are pondering 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.

“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.”