RSS Feed
Print Story
E-mail Story
County proposes layoffs, service cuts
| Thursday, Jul 3 2008 1:57 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Jul 3 2008 4:54 PM
Sixteen layoffs, shorter library hours and browner parks are part of a so-lean-it-hurts spending plan for 2008-2009 proposed by county officials Thursday.
BAKERSFIELD.COM HOT TOPICS:
Loading Stories
Advertisement
Copies of this fiscal year’s county budget will be available at all county libraries Monday.
The budget will also be published on the county's Web site.
Engineering and Survey Services — two full-time jobs
Child Support Services — one full-time job
Resource Management Agency — one full-time job
Environmental Health Services — five full-time jobs
Aging and Adult Services — one part-time job
Library — one full-time job and five part-time jobs
Ten of the 16 county employees who would lose their jobs now work full-time.
Beale Memorial Library and 12 other library branches would cut hours by 16 percent.
And county parks would turn dingy as they’d be watered, mowed and maintained less often.
“There will be impacts to the departments and there will be impacts to the public,” said county Budget Director Debbie Stevenson.
Supervisors are scheduled to spend the next two weeks reviewing the proposed budget before hearings to adopt it scheduled for the week of July 21.
The $1.5 billion spending plan would actually a little bigger than the $1.4 billion one for the 2007-2008 fiscal year, which ended June 30. But Stevenson said much of that positive appearance is an illusion.
A new accounting rule, she said, requires the county to count $174.9 million in “special purpose funds” twice — once as a separate fund and again as revenue to various county departments and programs.
The county’s budget pain becomes clear when you look at the drop in “discretionary revenue” — money the county has more control over how to spend.
Last fiscal year, Kern County had $428.8 million to spend. This year it has only $398.9 million — a nearly 7 percent drop. The impact will be obvious, Stevenson said.
“Parks is going to experience some major hits,” she said.
That department would hold 17 jobs empty — meaning less watering and mowing of parks and less care and maintenance of county buildings, Stevenson said.
Parks and Recreation Director Bob Lerude said in addition, he would be unable to hire 40 “extra help” workers — people who pick up trash, clean restrooms and mow and edge the lawns in county parks.
“We still have permanent staff folks but they will have to take up the slack for those extra help folks,” Lerude said.
The budget also calls for cutting $250,000 in water bills and electricity costs.
That means lights in parks — even night-time security lights — would be shut off, Lerude said.
Other departments are feeling less of a bite, but are still having to tighten belts they’d rather not tighten.
The Kern County Fire Department wouldn’t get the additional staff and equipment it requested.
And the Kern County Sheriff’s Department has moved to reduce the number of patrol, detective and administration cars staff are allowed to drive home at night.
A total of 54 county positions — only 16 of which are filled — would be eliminated.
Environmental Health Services is scheduled to lose five full-time jobs.
But Director Matt Constantine said if supervisors approve a planned increase in service fees that businesses pay his department, he will be able to keep the five employees and hire more workers to inspect businesses that use substantial amounts of high-risk chemicals.
“If not I have to make significant and immediate cuts,” he said.
The downward pressures on the county budget are many, Stevenson said.
Kern County will receive $91 million less in federal and state funds, a 15.8 percent decline.
Sales taxes were stagnant, she said.
Major increases in employee pay, approved in 2007, have also sapped the county’s spending power.