SANTA PAULA : Panel Reconsiders 2-Year Budget

The Santa Paula City Council will reconsider a two-year spending plan tonight that avoids large-scale layoffs this year but projects a $600,000 deficit for next year.

A week ago, a divided council postponed a decision on the two-year budget until tonight, saying it was unprepared to approve a spending plan with so much red ink.

“I can pass a one-year budget, but I just can’t approve a two-year budget with a half-million deficit in the second year,” said Mayor Pro Tem Wayne D. Johnson. Council members John A.F. Melton and Robin S. Sullivan also opposed the two-year budget.

The current year’s $11.9-million budget was balanced, despite the loss of $1.3 million in state funding, by dipping into an unused self-insurance fund and street repair budget, City Administrator Arnold Dowdy said.

He predicted the state would cut its funding to the city by another $2 million next year, giving the council a year to cover an anticipated $600,000 deficit. Covering the shortfall from the city’s reserve fund would exhaust two-fifths of the city’s reserves, Dowdy said.

Even if voters approve the extension of a half-cent sales tax in a November election, next year’s deficit would be reduced by $116,000, he said.

Under the spending plan proposed for the fiscal year that began July 1, $60,000 would be cut by eliminating 12 part-time crossing guards and one part-time position in the city’s Planning Department.

City officials said schools would have to pay for the guards in order to retain them.

With no new hiring authorized, the city’s payroll will remain at 89 employees, the same number as in 1979, Dowdy said.