Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Lancaster Budget Holds Line While Hiking Police Spending 7% : Services: Cuts in community grants and four layoffs will maintain last year’s level of $28.7 million.

The City Council approved an operating budget for the coming fiscal year of $28.7-million--almost identical to the current budget. But because law enforcement spending has been boosted by 7% in the new budget, some departments--including public works, which will have to lay off four employees--will be taking cuts.

The total share going to law enforcement and community safety programs is $10.6 million, primarily for police services provided by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. That total includes $50,000 originally earmarked for the city’s community grant program, which funds local nonprofit groups.

Those funds will be transferred to the law enforcement account for programs to crack down on auto theft, juvenile crimes, graffiti, residential burglaries and traffic offenses.

It will leave the community grant program with only half the funds it has had in the previous two years.

The increase in law enforcement funding was made by the council, which unanimously approved the budget Monday night, even though a report issued in February showed that the number of major crimes actually decreased in Lancaster in 1993 compared with 1992. But at candidate forums prior to the April 12 election, residents made it clear that crime was probably their upmost concern.

Also being cut in the new budget are funds for the city clerk’s office, but city officials said that was because it does not have the expense of an election in the upcoming fiscal year.

There will also be cutbacks in community development planning because, city officials said, of the slowdown in development.

Although the layoffs will be from the public works department, Assistant City Manager Dennis Davenport said there would not be a noticeable cutback in services to the public. He said the jobs being eliminated were those of engineers and inspectors.

The budget actually calls for the elimination of 10 full-time jobs and one part-time position, but most of them had already been left vacant over the past year after workers retired, transferred or quit.

At Monday’s meeting, the council also rejected a last-minute plea from the local American Red Cross chapter, which sought $100,000 to help finish its new headquarters.

Council members applauded the project but said the city could not afford to give the agency the funds.

“You have made me bleed inside because we can’t do what you want us to do,” Mayor Frank Roberts said. “It’s almost like I’m voting against God, country and motherhood when I vote against the Red Cross.”

Council members said they would consider giving the Red Cross a portion of the funds left in the community grant program. They also offered to help the organization raise funds from private sources.

Ed Skvarca, chairman of the Antelope Valley Red Cross chapter, said the organization has already raised $500,000 to put up the roof and exterior walls of a 6,000-square-foot building at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale. The building will be able to withstand an 8.0 earthquake and will be the focal point for aiding victims of a quake, flood or other disasters, he said.

The organization needs another $250,000 to finish the interior, Skvarca said.

“I’d have been happier if they had given us the line item in the budget,” Skvarca said. “But I respect where they’re coming from.”