A budget shortfall in the City of Saratoga Springs would lead to widespread cuts and a reduction in the quality of emergency services if proposed department reductions are carried out, according to Public Safety Commissioner Ron Kim.
Finance Commissioner Ken Ivins has proposed that the city shore up a $3 million shortfall brought about by poorer than expected tax revenues and a total removal of state VLT aid through cuts to all city departments. Public Safety has the largest budget, and would suffer $1.3 million in cuts.
Kim presented a scenario to the City Council on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 27, that would eliminate 14 firefighters, 18 patrol officers and a number of other positions and programs to come up with $1.3 million in savings.
The police department employs over 70 officers and the fire department has 55 members. Kim said the staffing reductions would be about as low as the department could possibly go. Even so, he stressed that response times would suffer.
Folks, you’re going to wait, he said. `If we go below minimum staffing, we’ll have to close the West Side Station periodically. We won’t have enough bodies.`
Kim’s scenario also included the elimination of school crossing guards, who also work during track season; the firing of two police dispatchers; firing all but one parking enforcement officer; eliminating the DARE program and Operation Safe Child; and reducing police and fire training budgets.
Police Chief Edward Moore spoke during the meeting to say that cutting officers when calls have increased 15 percent over last year is not only unwise, it’s unsafe.
`This is going to hurt us, it’s going to get one of our officers seriously injured or killed,` he said. `I’m going to have to assign supervisors, high level supervisors, to the street, and they are going to have to forget about administrative duties.`
Ivins said he will examine Kim’s slides when preparing his own presentation for Tuesday’s Council meeting, when the budget will be on the agenda.
The council discussed briefly on Wednesday the circumstances that brought on the fiscal crisis. The state had promised to cut only half of the city’s VLT aid originally, but after Saratoga Springs adopted its own budget the state cut the remaining $1.9 million.
`Like a fool, I believed the governor`I didn’t expect him to lie to us,` said Ivins, who added that the city would likely have needed cuts without budgeting for the aid.
The city used contingency funds and one-time revenues to pass a budget with no tax hike last year. Once the budget is adopted, it can’t amend the tax rate.
Kim’s department ended last year $600,000 under budget, and he said it makes no sense to punish his fiscal conservatism with a deeper percentage of cuts than other departments would suffer in the mid-year crisis.
`In the 2009 budget we’re getting penalized for not spending that money,` he said.
During the budgeting process last year, Ivins lamented disparities between what was planned for departments and the reality, saying that it made accurate planning a great deal more difficult.
Kim and other commissioners suggested that the city continue seeking more revenue sources to lessen the sting of the cuts.
`I think we need to take a look at every piece of property that the city owns. If there’s some way we can get it back on the city’s tax rolls, it’s something we need to consider,` said Public Works Commissioner Anthony `Skip` Scirocco.
Kim suggested moving forward with Bonacio Construction’s proposal to pay $4.5 million for rights to develop the High Rock parking lot and build a public safety building nearby.
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