LA HABRA : City Manager Warns of Wide Budget Gap

Blaming the state for taking money from local governments, City Manager Lee Risner announced this week that the city faces at least a $1.5-million shortfall in the 1993-94 budget.

This would mark the second year in a row that La Habra officials have had to close a budget gap.

The city had to cut the 1992-93 budget from $14 million to $12.2 million, Risner said. To balance the budget, the city laid off 19 employees and in anticipation of future cuts imposed a 6% utility user tax in December.

“Now they want us to cut another $1.5 million (in property tax revenue),” Risner said at Tuesday’s council meeting. “That’s a very heavy cut.”

Residents will start paying the utility tax in May. That should bring the city an additional $3 million over a two-year period, Risner said. But, he said, that may not be enough to close the budget gap.

“It appears to me that what we had anticipated the state would take from us is actually going to be much more,” Risner said. “Add the recession, and we’re still likely to be in the hole.”

Risner and several council members indicated that the anticipated shortfall in the 1993-94 budget might be narrowed by cutting into the Police and Fire departments’ budgets.

“It’s not something we want to do,” Risner said. “It’s not nice. It’s not good anything, but we don’t call the shots. . . . Unless something very dramatic happens, we will see (state cuts) repeat one year from now. The state has found a very good way to solve its problem by taking from local agencies. Until the victim dies, I guess they will continue to do so.”

City officials still are trying to determine how large the shortfall will be.

“It’s a guessing game right now,” Mayor William D. Mahoney said.

Council members expressed frustration over state budget cuts.

“The state is ripping us off,” Councilman James Flora said. “They can sit up there and say, ‘We’re not going to raise taxes,’ so the cities are forced to do it, and we get the brunt of (the public’s wrath). We haven’t got very many places to cut now other than police and fire personnel.”

Added Mahoney: “We’re the scapegoats. We’re the kicking posts and it’s a frustrating situation we’re in. . . . It’s a crying shame.”

Residents also expressed anger.

“This issue is real disturbing to me,” said longtime resident Jim Flores. “The residents of the city are not aware of this fiasco. I think it’s time they become aware of what this nightmare is all about.”

Flores suggested residents write or call state legislators to try to “put a stop to it.”