Simi Avoids Deficit, OKs $35.9-Million Budget

By freezing some open jobs, chopping consulting fees and trimming here and there, city officials turned a $600,000 deficit into a $29,650 surplus.

The surplus “is little, but it’s black,” Mayor Greg Stratton said late Monday before he and his colleagues unanimously approved a $35.9-million balanced budget.

As in years past, the monthlong budget talks went smoothly. The city’s $22.2-million reserves were left untouched, and no layoffs were considered to pull the city out of the red.

Along the way, the city added $812,400 in spending for cost-of-living raises, computers on desks and in police cars, night-vision devices and guns for the Police Department, fax machines and a mail machine, among other things. The city also agreed to hire a new associate city planner, at a cost of $62,000, to handle an increased workload.

To offset the spending and the yawning deficit, the council cut $1.4 million from the budget, according to Simi Valley budget officer Ken Schechter.

A big savings--$327,600--came from the Public Works Department, where four vacant engineering positions were frozen and two vacancies were filled by lower-paid employees.

Out the door went $250,000 in consulting fees and studies for the Environmental Services Department. A lower-than-anticipated bid for repaving streets saved $178,000. Savings in insurance and workers’ compensation added up to about $329,000.

Even the city’s cherished Police Department volunteered to take a $34,000 hit, giving up funds requested for team-building and transcript services. By way of explanation, Police Chief Randy Adams said: “We know how tight the budget is this year.”

But the department also received $61,600 in new spending--to replace a vehicle and buy two night-vision devices, two 9-millimeter guns and four computer printers.

The department will also receive 12 mobile data computers for patrol cars and two desktop computers, worth $197,200. The General Fund cost of the computers is $90,700, with federal funds and dollars from forfeited assets making up the difference.

“I think the council came a long way from where we began,” City Manager Mike Sedell said.

The five-member council squeezed in a modest 1% cost-of-living increase for city staffers--many of them administrators--who are not represented by a union. The increases and reclassification of some managers cost about $430,000.

The increase is not an automatic raise for the police chief and other department heads. While it boosts their salary range, their raises, to be based on merit, will be decided later, Assistant City Manager Laura Herron said.

One gaping budget hole remaining is a raise for police officers, whose contract negotiations with the city have sputtered.

“The council will address that later on,” Schechter said. “They can re-look at the budget at any time, making other deletions of expenditures.”