Draft Budget Cuts Spending Up to 3% Across the Board, Except for Fire and Police

The city’s draft budget spares police and fire services from a proposed citywide spending cut of up to 3% but asks all other departments to share the pain, officials said Tuesday.

Shaving the money from department budgets will counter a $1.3-million revenue shortfall and allow city reserves to be replenished, leaving the city with an estimated $60-million budget for fiscal 1996-97.

“It is not going to break us, but we are going to be really stretched,” said Wendy Penrose, who heads the Oxnard Library’s support-services department. “The bottom line is [that] this is like the fourth or fifth year in a row that we have experienced cuts.”

City officials were still putting the finishing touches on the 300-page document late Tuesday.

Penrose said her budget would drop by as much as $86,000 under the proposed spending plan, shrinking the pot of money available for supplies, books and scheduled salary increases.

But, said Penrose: “We are not going to close any branches or reduce any hours.”

Oxnard City Manager Tom Frutchey agreed, saying departments will be asked to find ways to save money or locate new revenue sources.

“They have to provide the same level of service,” Frutchey said.

The 3% cuts are from general fund allocations, so if departments raise revenue from other sources, that would not be trimmed, Frutchey added.

Michael Henderson, superintendent of Oxnard’s parks and facilities, said his department may have up to $80,000 less spending power next year because of the cuts.

But like other department heads, he said, there will be no layoffs or noticeable decline in services to the public. Instead, Henderson said, he will try to close the gap by making operations more efficient and trying to attract more residents to revenue-generating areas like Oxnard State Beach Park.

“We intend to market those things that we do make revenues on,” Henderson said.

At least one department, the Oxnard Housing Authority, will not really feel the crunch because most of its $16.5-million budget comes not from the general fund but from federal grants and tenant rents.

Yet, Sal Gonzalez, the housing authority’s director, said he will have to pare $2,700 from the $90,000 budget of the Mobile Home Rent Stabilization Board, which monitors rental agreements between park owners and mobile home residents.

“I don’t think there is going to be a dramatic impact on it at this point,” Gonzalez said.

Although Oxnard’s Police Department is shielded from the reductions, Police Chief Harold Hurtt said he does not think the proposed budget includes money to complete a three-year plan to put 37 more officers on the streets.

Since 1992, the city has spent nearly $2 million adding 31 officers under the plan to bolster the force.

“We understand the financial condition of the city,” Hurtt said about the lack of money to hire the remaining six officers. “We will have to do our best with what we have got. We are maybe looking at a three-year plan that is going to last five years.”

The city will hold its first public hearing on the budget June 4 during a regularly scheduled City Council meeting. If all goes as planned, Oxnard hopes to adopt a final budget by mid-June.