Tempe council in favor of spending cuts to balance budget

Without debate, the Tempe City Council is in favor of cutting spending to balance an out-of-alignment budget.

Budget cuts are key item on Tempe council agenda

But these elected officials also want to maintain public safety, respond to the needs of neighborhoods and make sure information technology workers aren't stolen away by better-paying employers.

Verifying that Tempe's financial health will require sacrifice, casting long shadows across a color-coded spreadsheet during a Monday morning workshop were the real-world effects: The needed cuts will result in a loss of services for 174,000 residents and, maybe, a loss of jobs for some among 1,800 employees.

Following one stretch during which council members listed the departments they'd rather not see affected, Mayor Hugh Hallman felt the need to remind his colleagues that such protection comes at a price.

"Understand, every one of these things you touch, you've got to make it up" somewhere else, Hallman said.

The city, suffering from the same economic malaise afflicting the Valley, state and nation, needs to shore up what is projected to be a deficit of more than $25 million through mid-2010.

City Manager Charlie Meyer has said that it may be necessary to slash almost 180 positions from the payroll - through attrition and a citywide reorganization, hopefully, but if absolutely needed, through layoffs. The city also plans to use millions from the unreserved fund balance that has been accrued over the years.

Until recently, Tempe officials were confident that no one would involuntarily lose a job through the cuts. Meyer even had his department heads compile dozens of "reorganization concepts," which would reclassify and move employees between departments while eliminating 104 positions, for a projected annual savings of $8.9 million.

But worse-than-expected sales tax collections forced the city's financial managers to reassess how much needed to be cut.

"That 75 (jobs) was a hard number to swallow," Meyer admitted.

At the end of the workshop, which lasted more than three hours, no concrete decisions were made on cuts, either to services, wages or jobs. Those will be hashed out during meetings - in which "fisticuffs" may ensue, Hallman joked - between Meyer's staff and the representatives of Tempe's four employee unions, as well as the unaffiliated workers.

Meyer wants to present a plan for cuts by early February.

Meanwhile, the council seemed content to establish broad boundaries of what is essential to the city's operations while not getting deeply involved in what should be cut.

"My plea is: Council members, we'll stay out of it; staff members, please don't lobby us about this position or that position," Hallman said.

There was consensus that job losses should be kept to a minimum, even if wages and benefits must be held steady.

Other money-saving suggestions were:

Stop leasing private office space and consolidate employees into city-owned properties. Councilwoman Onnie Shekerjian noted that the first floor of City Hall once housed offices; it now hosts a seldom-visited art gallery.

Bring the work of public information officers scattered through various departments under one roof.

Assess whether some public boards, such as the Rio Salado Advisory Commission and the Golf Committee, can be combined into other groups.