On Jan. 17, the City Council will decide whether to declare a State of Fiscal Emergency and place an Essential City Services ballot measure before the voters this June. While many of our neighboring communities have multiple local funding mechanisms, this will be the first time we have placed such a measure before our voters. We do not make this decision lightly, but only after years of service cuts that have begun to seriously impact local city services. Without additional funds, we simply cannot provide the services that our residents deserve.
Last year, Santa Maria’s population surpassed 100,000 residents, and in the past decade, community calls for fire services have increased by 80 percent. In addressing recently unfunded police officers’ positions, police officers from specialty assignments, including our Community Services and Gang Suppression units, have been redeployed in order to maintain a full patrol program. And with the growing population, the city is struggling to meet increases in demands for public safety, including 911 response times.
Our growing community needs to hire more firefighters to staff and operate a new fire station to provide timely service levels citywide, and needs to restore unfunded police officer positions to address gang and drug activity. If the river levee isn’t fixed soon, there’s also the risk that thousands of property owners will be required to pay upward of $2,000 annually in flood insurance.
Unfortunately, the recession and state takeaways have dramatically reduced the local funding available to support the community’s essential city services. Over the last 20 years, the state has taken $28.5 million from the city to deal with Sacramento’s budget mess, forcing the City of Santa Maria to make severe cuts that have resulted in reduced services. In addition to these past raids on city revenues, the state has recently abolished redevelopment agencies throughout California, which, to Santa Maria, means a loss of more than $1 million dollars annually.
In addition to the state takeaways, the recent recession has caused ongoing General Fund revenues to drop by more than $10 million, requiring us to eliminate or not fund 68 positions citywide—many of them direct-service providers, including public safety (police and fire) personnel. We have also made millions of dollars in reductions to our operating expenses, with some departments cutting up to 20 percent of their budget; we’ve furloughed city employees; we’ve either reduced or completely eliminated certain employee benefits; we’ve deferred numerous capital and equipment purchases; we’ve reduced operating hours in our library and other departments; and we’re entering our third year of employee concessions—all in an effort to reduce operating expenses.
Santa Maria currently has four fire stations, and its firefighters responded to 8,500 calls for service last year. Santa Maria firefighters respond to more 911 calls than any other fire department in the bi-county region, yet the city has the fewest number of fire stations for cities our size. Without additional revenue, the city currently does not have the necessary funds to staff the new Fire Station No. 5, built entirely through one-time federal grant funding, and critically important to help us improve 911 response times.
A five-minute response time is essential in order to save lives; a patient who stops breathing can suffer brain damage after five minutes, and a fire can double in size every 90 seconds. The city currently achieves this goal for just 63 percent of the city. With Fire Station No. 5 staffed at full operation, the city anticipates meeting this goal for 91 percent of the city, which can help save lives and prevent more fires from spreading. So we need to get Fire Station No. 5 operational as soon as possible in order to better protect and serve the community.
We also need to restore police officers in order to fully staff our Gang Suppression Unit. In addition to the ongoing problem of hit-and-runs, crimes associated with gangs and drugs continue to be a serious concern in our community. Unfortunately, proactive law enforcement programs (such as Community Policing and the Gang Suppression Unit) have all been severely reduced, resulting in officers being redeployed from these specialty assignments back to patrol.
The proposed Essential City Services Measure is a temporary, quarter-cent sales tax measure that is only for Santa Maria. The measure would help us protect and maintain essential Santa Maria services as well as improve public safety and 911 response times. All funds are legally required to stay in our community and cannot be taken by Sacramento, providing locally controlled funds for local services.
In addition, the measure will be subject to independent financial audits, and it creates an independent oversight committee to monitor how funds are spent. It would expire in nine years.
To learn more, I invite you to visit the city’s website and review the link titled “Information About Essential City Services Proposed Ballot Measure.” Questions may be directed to Mark van de Kamp of the City Manager’s Office at 925-0951, Ext. 372.
Larry Lavagnino is mayor of Santa Maria. Send comments to Executive Editor Ryan Miller at rmiller@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 12-19, 2012.