Glendale Cuts Staff, Pares Spending to Balance Budget

City allocations for a Rose Parade float, the Glendale Symphony and the Youth Orchestra were among the final items pared before the Glendale City Council adopted an austere $315-million budget for 1993-94 on Tuesday.

After six months of working to close a $6.4-million gap between mounting expenses and dwindling revenues, council members penciled in the final figures in the spending plan that includes an unallocated surplus of $53,594.

The budget, which is effective today, eliminates 19 positions from the city’s payroll, including eight layoffs, cuts more than $3 million in services and adds a tax on interstate telephone service.

Council members admitted that the relatively small surplus in a multimillion-dollar budget allows little leeway for changes in spending for the next year.

“We just have to batten down the hatches and hope we get through some stormy seas,” City Manager David H. Ramsay said.

Hardest hit by the staff reductions is the Public Works Department, where seven vacant positions have been eliminated and four employees are scheduled to be terminated. City officials said it is premature to say just who, if anybody, will lose their jobs, since employees may be shifted to other departments.

The city has cut more than 100 staff positions in the past two years to a current total of 1,552.

Among budget-slashing measures, last-minute cuts Tuesday included an allocation of $60,000 rather than $90,000 for the city’s float entry in the Pasadena Rose Parade, $15,000 rather than $25,000 requested by the Glendale Symphony Orchestra, and only half of the $10,000 in support sought by the Glendale Youth Orchestra.