Oxnard’s Budget Cuts Jobs but Adds Police : Finances: The spending plan takes $500,000 from reserves to hire eight officers.

After months of deliberation, the Oxnard City Council has adopted a threadbare budget that guts city programs and eliminates jobs, but manages to put more police officers on the street and spares libraries from severe cuts.

The $60-million general fund budget, adopted unanimously late Tuesday, is the most austere spending plan approved in recent years.

“We are providing less services now then we were a few years ago,” Mayor Manuel Lopez said before approving the budget. “You cannot take the types of cuts we’ve been taking without affecting services.”

The budget represents $2 million in cuts to municipal services, and city officials warned that they may have to slice another $2.6 million to absorb cuts that may be handed down by state lawmakers.

Officials will eliminate 23.5 positions in various departments. City staff members said they are still trying to determine whether those reductions can be accomplished through attrition or whether layoffs will be necessary.

The city had already sliced 120 positions over the past four years from its 1,100-member staff.

But while other departments have been forced to cut workers, the council on Tuesday agreed to take $500,000 from reserves to hire eight additional police officers to patrol Ventura County’s most crime-plagued city.

“I am extremely pleased, especially for the residents and the officers,” said Oxnard Police Chief Harold Hurtt, who estimated it will be nearly a year before the additional officers hit the streets. “I just think the council realized that we are at the point where if we didn’t do something, we would have been in real serious trouble.”

The new hires will raise the number of sworn officers in Oxnard to 156. The eight new officers complete the first phase of a three-year plan outlined by Hurtt last year calling for the addition of 33 employees, mostly detectives and other officers.

The Police Department’s $19.4-million budget, the largest of any city department, represents about a 1% increase over last year’s.

“We have to set a commitment today,” Councilman Andres Herrera said. “It’s our residents’ primary concern and we’ve talked about it and talked about it. Now it’s time for action.”

Council members agreed that reserves will be used to fund the new police positions this year only. After that, the jobs will be funded by savings from a reorganization plan approved earlier Tuesday.

That plan, which will eliminate five city departments, is expected to produce an annual savings of $1.6 million.

Council members ordered the reorganization two months ago during a budget workshop. The city’s Library Department was among the departments merged or eliminated through the reorganization, a move that sparked furious protests on the part of library patrons and supporters.

But while city officials went ahead with the merger Tuesday, they rejected a recommendation to close Oxnard’s new, two-story library three days a week.

“We’ve got a beautiful library and when we close the doors, it’s not an addition to our community,” Councilman Tom Holden said.

Barely past its one-year anniversary, the $12-million library already is closed Fridays and Sundays, the result of a 32% budget reduction during the last two years.

The proposal to shut down a third day sparked a newfound activism, with patrons and supporters embarking on an ambitious petition drive and letter-writing campaign.

Supporters on Wednesday said their hard work paid off.

“It’s really good to know that our efforts in getting petitions signed and attending council meetings were effective,” said Felicity Harper, president of the Friends of the Oxnard Library. “There was a lot of interest and we were very glad to see that we got that kind of response from the community.”

Council members also reversed an earlier decision to close the mini-library in Oxnard’s La Colonia neighborhood, after listening to an impassioned plea by area resident Dorina Zamudio.

“The problem we have is a very important one because it concerns the education of our children,” Zamudio told the council Tuesday night, first in Spanish through a translator and then in halting English choked with emotion.

“When we have a problem, you say you care about us. You say you care about us but you don’t,” she continued. “You only go to the Colonia when you need our votes.”

The City Council voted unanimously to use $16,000 in housing money to keep the one-room library open.

The City Council also approved a $17.1-million capital improvement budget, a $16.3-million housing authority budget and a $7.1-million redevelopment agency budget.