State Helps Cash-Strapped City Meet Worker Payroll

State funds that will allow Hawaiian Gardens to pay city employees, all of whom were sent home empty-handed last week, arrived Monday.

Interim city administrator Jack Simpson said the $168,728 in sales tax revenues and vehicle fees will cover the payroll for the city’s 100 employees. But he said the money will probably not avert as many as 20 layoffs scheduled for consideration at tonight’s City Council meeting.

An additional 10 layoffs could follow, and the city’s 18-officer police force could be dissolved next month, Simpson said.

For more than a year, the square-mile city of 14,000 has relied on payments of $200,000 a month from developer Irving Moskowitz, owner of the city’s bingo club, to meet its payroll. Those payments were stopped last month, and officials say they have not received word if Moskowitz will continue to support city operations.