Council to Discuss Staff & Services Cuts, Public Safety, Kensington Project

The Sierra Madre City Council will meet Tuesday evening at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 232 W Sierra Madre Blvd. in Sierra Madre. The meeting will be broadcast on cable channel 3 and online as a live stream on the KGEM-TV website.

The agenda includes seven items, including the following hot topics:

2011 Public Safety Report

The City Council will receive a public safety report from Sierra Madre's police and fire departments for 2011. When reports like these are received by the council, there is usually a brief overview of what information they contain, so hopefully we'll have some stats to share with you on Wednesday.

Kensington Project

Developers of the proposed assisted living facility at 225-245 W Sierra Madre Blvd. have requested that their project be put before voters in November. The Council will discuss this request Tuesday night.

Final project plans would first have to be reviewed by the Planning Commission and then approved by the City Council before it would appear on the ballot. The project

Cuts to City Staff and Services

The city's budget took an $800,000 hit after having to . The Council is now looking to make budget cuts, and Tuesday they will discuss whether there needs to be any organizational changes to city employees and services.

According to city staff reports, there are recommended cuts across nearly every department, including the library, police, fire, and community services, including the aquatic program. These cuts would save $272,000.

Though eight full-time positions could be up for elimination, six new full-time positions would be created. Additionally, a number of part-time positions would be eliminated and three new part-time positions would be created.

Here's an overview of City Staff's recommendations. The Council can adopt them, make changes, table them for a future discussion or take no action.

Police:

• Keep the positions of Police Captain and Police Officer "frozen," with no actions taken to hire someone to fill them.
• Eliminate one full-time Code Enforcement Officer position and instead create a part-time Code Enforcement Officer position.
• Eliminate one part-time Detective position
• Reduce hours for part-time Cadets
• Share a part-time Administrative Clerk with the Fire Department
• These cuts would save $131,000

Fire Department:

• Share a part-time Administrative Clerk with the Police Department
• Reduce hours for the part-time Engineer
• These cuts would save $33,000

Library:

• Keep five full-time employees but restructure their positions
• Reduce part-time staff hours
• Reduce evening and weekend library hours by six hours per week
• Potential loss of adult book club, One Book One City events, adult computer classes. Check out lines and new material processing may also be longer.
• These cuts would save $42,000

Community Services (including Aquatics Program):

• Personnel and risk management duties transferred back to Administration
• Close city pool on weekends during the year
• Close city pool after evening swim lessons during the summer, eliminating Family Swim on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings and Lap Swim on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
• Staff restructuring: Recreation Manager would report to new Asst. City Manager positions.
• These cuts would save $124,000

Development Services

• Reduce one full-time administrative assistant position and create one part-time administrative clerk. This would reduce public counter hours and increase waiting times for project applications and plan check reviews. It could also possibly cause the Planning Commission and General Plan committee to reduce their meetings to once a month.
• Reduce part-time Planning intern hours
• Building Official position could be contracted out
• These cuts would bring savings of $42,000

Public Works

• No cuts would be made, but a Maintenance Worker position would remain frozen and unfilled.

Administration

• Adjust staff responsibilites and transfer personnel from Community Services.
• Create an Assistant City Manager position
• Create an Accounting Manager position
• The transfering of personnel would increase Administration department spending by $112,500. But when offset by the Community Services cuts, there would actually be a savings of $12,000.

The Council will also discuss employee salaries and benefits.

Check out the full City Council Agenda online.