Bare-Bones Spending Plan Unveiled : Oxnard: A June 8 public hearing is scheduled on the $60-million budget. Officials say the worst may be yet to come.

Oxnard officials unveiled a bare-bones budget Tuesday representing $2 million in cuts to fire, library and other municipal services.

The austere, $60-million spending plan incorporates a number of previous City Council decisions to cut the city’s work force, close the main library three days of the week and permanently shut the doors at the mini-library in Oxnard’s La Colonia barrio.

The council on Tuesday scheduled a June 8 public hearing on the budget. Council members have until the end of next month to adopt the document.

For the fourth consecutive year, city staff members presented council members with a budget more threadbare than the one before it.

And, as they have in previous years, staff members warned that the worst may be yet to come.

“This budget does not reflect a further hit we may take from the state,” City Manager Vern Hazen said of a move that could require city officials to slice another $2.6 million out of the budget. “The big shoe is yet to drop.”

As proposed, the general fund budget would total $60.3 million, with the bulk of the expenditures--$50 million--going toward salaries. City staff also presented a separate housing department budget of $16.3 million and a Redevelopment Agency budget of $7.1 million.

Money shortages have already cut 120 positions from the city’s work force, which stood at 1,100 positions just four years ago.

The budget for fiscal year 1993-94 calls for the council to cut an additional 12.5 positions and freeze two others. Positions targeted for elimination include assistant fire chief, a librarian and eight managers from throughout City Hall. Those cuts will reduce the work force to 992 employees.

Officials said they have yet to determine whether they will be forced to lay off workers or whether the cuts can be achieved through reorganization and attrition.

“I think what we have to look forward to is a further reduction of services,” Mayor Manuel Lopez said. “I don’t think we can be very optimistic. Things aren’t going to get better; they’re going to get worse.”

Last year, three months after officials went through a painful cost-cutting process to balance the city’s $62-million spending plan, council members were forced to cut an additional $1.2 million from the general fund budget and $600,000 from the Redevelopment Agency budget to absorb cuts handed down by the state.

State lawmakers, to solve their own budget problems, have resorted to withholding fees that used to trickle down to local government.

Similar state cuts this year could force even deeper cuts locally, officials said, and could prevent the city from meeting often-stated goals of beefing up public safety programs.

In fact, council members at a March budget session said they hoped that they could increase the number of police officers on the street during this year’s budget process. Toward that end, the council approved a citywide reorganization plan Tuesday that will allow the department to add two more police officers.

“I’m going to fight for more police; I’m not giving up,” Councilman Michael Plisky said. “I’m going to do what I can to bring that about.”

Added Lopez: “At times like these, you have to really consider that just keeping the numbers you have is a real accomplishment.”