On June 24, the Lompoc City Council had a special meeting concerning the budget. At the end of the meeting, they adopted a budget with some serious flaws. However, there was one big surprise.
Reading the city budget is like studying the printed circuit of an Alexa device and trying to figure out how it can sound the alarm when the timer is up.
I had a conversation with our local budget guru, and he tried to explain the book to me. My takeaway from this conversation was that it is written for auditors and not the general public. The only thing the public needs to know is that government cannot spend more than it takes in as fees or taxes.
One of our council members keeps saying that because the budgets for the police and fire departments were increased that it constitutes a raise, not a cut. Taken literally, that might be true until you peel the apple to see what’s inside.
The “raise” he is talking about is the result of contracts that were negotiated a couple of years ago between the city and the two labor groups that represent public safety employees.
To explain cuts, let’s start with the Lompoc Fire Department, which performs two functions—fire prevention and fire operations. Before you can build or open a business, the fire marshal must review your plans for compliance with numerous fire safety codes.
Three council members just removed or eliminated the fire marshal position, thus eliminating the staff that helps with fire prevention. Some believe this was the result of retaliation by one or more council members because of conflicts they had with the rules associated with plan checks and occupancy permits.
So, this is just one component of economic development, which drives tax revenue, that was cut from the budget.
Then there is the fire operations function. The constant staffing level for the fire department is nine people on duty, including the battalion chief, two captains and the crew of each unit. I spoke with the fire department and they told me that there are three work groups (three work shifts). Each has nine personnel and each shift works at least 120, 24-hours tours of duty each year or 2,880 hours. Other city employees and almost everyone else works an average of 2,000 hours a year.
But just like regular people, firefighters have vacation time, get sick, or are injured and must attend training to be certified in the many tasks a firefighter performs. The fire department told me that, on average, only seven people are available on any given shift. That’s when they need to “hire” overtime members to fulfill the constant staffing requirement.
Once again, three council members just removed or eliminated most of the overtime component of the budget. The result is that the two-member rescue crew will not be staffed on shifts when there are only seven people on duty. This crew is critical during medical emergencies and as the rescuers for firefighters who enter burning buildings. Without this dedicated rescue team, firefighters are prohibited by the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) from entering any environment that is immediately dangerous to life or health.
So, if you have a heart attack or your business or home catches on fire, you may have to wait several minutes for help. Prior to having a rescue crew the fire department was unable to respond promptly to more than 500 calls a year. That number is likely to increase.
Next was community development. The three council members sprang into action. They removed or eliminated two planners, the development services specialist and the code enforcement officer. Once again, some believe that removal of the code enforcement officer was the result of retaliation by one or more council members because of conflicts they had with the rules associated with the condition of properties they own in the city.
So, this is another component of economic development, which drives tax revenue, that was cut from the budget.
You see, it all depends on how you look at so called “budget increases.” From my perspective, numerous cuts were made to this budget and some will have a long-lasting impact on the people of Lompoc, future development, and economic growth in the city.
Lastly, there was the surprise of this series of budget discussions. Councilmember Dirk Starbuck has said many times that he doesn’t believe the people would vote for a 1 percent sales tax increase, but in the June 24 meeting that’s exactly what he proposed!
After showing a graphic that clearly illustrated that low-income earners would only pay $36 a month with a tax increase, he followed it with a proposal to reduce some utility service fees to compensate for the increase.
But his proposal means that voters would be asked to allocate the increased revenue to a specific purpose; paying down long-term debt, the CalPERS liability. This would require 67 percent of voters to approve a sales tax ballot measure, which is difficult to achieve.
Thus, he and his cohorts become “heroes” for suggesting a tax increase, but hedged their bets by setting the goal post far enough away to be difficult to achieve.
Ron Fink writes to the Sun from Lompoc. Send a response through the editor at clanham@santamariasun.com or write a letter to the editor and email it to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 4-11, 2019.