Long Beach City Council Warns of Deep Budget Cuts and Layoffs : Finances: Officials will consider reductions in services and staff to offset a deficit that some fear could reach $15 million.

Long Beach officials are warning that service cutbacks and employee layoffs are inevitable as they try to erase a projected deficit of $10 million to $15 million in next year’s budget.

Mayor Beverly O’Neill is scheduled to unveil her proposed budget today. The spending plan for fiscal year 1995-96, which begins July 1, is scheduled to be approved in late June by the City Council after a series of study sessions and public hearings.

Councilman Jeffrey Kellogg said the city has avoided the painful decisions in past years by resorting to “accounting tricks and creative financing”--such as dipping into surplus port funds and raiding an employee pension fund--but those options have been exhausted.

“There’s no other rabbit to pull out of our hat,” he said.

Kellogg and the eight other council members are bracing for intense lobbying efforts by city employee unions and special-interest groups to protect jobs and programs.

“If word gets out that the Public Corp. for the Arts funding is in jeopardy, the arts community will be out in force,” Councilman Les Robbins said. The organization provides funding for local art and cultural activities. The city is its main source of funding, providing about $500,000 a year.

Robbins said he already has received calls and letters from library supporters urging him to spare the city’s libraries from further cutbacks. The Library Department’s budget for books and other materials has been slashed by 60% and hours have been reduced in the past two years, but none of its 11 branches have been closed and no employees have been laid off, said Doris Soriano, branch library manager.

But Robbins’ list of “untouchables” includes only the police and fire departments. “The rest goes on the chopping block,” he said.

In fact, Robbins and most other council members said they favor hiring more officers and granting pay raises to existing officers. “We have a severe crisis in the Police Department because we don’t pay them a competitive salary,” said Robbins, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy. “We’re losing the cream of the crop.”

To expand the police force and raise the officers’ salaries, the council will have to make deep cuts in other departments, he acknowledged. “There’s going to be a lot of unhappy folks out there,” Robbins said.

Councilwoman Doris Topsy-Elvord said she plans to explore every alternative to laying off workers, including offering early retirement incentives and work furloughs.

Kellogg plans to make a big push for turning more city services over to private contractors to cut costs. He pointed out that the city’s golf courses used to be a drain on taxpayer funds when the city operated them, but they have been generating revenues for the city while under private management.

“It’s the cornerstone of our future,” he said, referring to privatization. “If we do not begin to aggressively contract out services, nothing else we do in the budget will matter.”

But Topsy-Elvord is opposed to letting private companies do the work of city staff. “You have no control over who they hire and what kind of services they render,” she said.

As required by the city charter, City Manager James C. Hankla drew up a budget recommendation and submitted it to O’Neill on May 1. She reviews the document and makes changes before releasing it to the council and public.

The city’s 1994-95 general fund budget--which pays for such services as police and fire protection, recreation programs, libraries, tree trimming and road maintenance--is $286.1 million, 3% less than the previous year’s spending plan.