WAILUKU - Mayor Charmaine Tavares said Tuesday that county employees are not facing layoffs or cutbacks as her administration puts the finishing touches on its budget proposal for fiscal 2010.
"I just want to make it very, very clear that my budget has no layoffs, no furloughs and no position cuts. There are zero. None," she said.
Her comments came in reaction to police Chief Tom Phillips' concern that budget restrictions would leave the Maui Police Department without dozens of positions and lead to a reduction in public safety services.
Tavares said that when people hear about a department cutting positions, they think about employees being laid off. But the cutbacks affect vacant positions only, she said.
"Historically, the Police Department has had about 30 vacant positions every year," she said.
As of March 1, the Police Department had 328 sworn officers and 116 civilian personnel. There also were 39 vacant officer positions and 27 unfilled civilian positions.
Phillips acknowledged that police officers and civilians currently working face no layoffs.
But, to maintain the department's current funding, its administrators needed to reduce overtime by $2 million and cut funding for 37 unfilled positions to accommodate negotiated police pay raises that go into effect July 1, Phillips said Tuesday.
The loss of funding for the unfilled positions would lead to the department being unable to pay officers' overtime for services such as school resource officers and crime prevention programs, the chief said.
The department has been short-handed for more than a decade, and overtime is routinely used to provide police services, he said. Also, when officers' base pay increases go into effect July 1, that will deplete overtime more rapidly than it is at current levels of pay.
Without the money from vacant positions, there's "no cushion, no extra money" to supplement overtime, Phillips said.
If the department continues at the same level of service next fiscal year, it will "run out of money," he said. And that would lead to cutbacks in services, beginning with crime prevention programs.
Budget Director Fred Pablo said Tuesday that the administration needs to keep the county budget at current fiscal 2009 levels to cope with lower revenue and higher costs, but department heads were told to make no cuts in personnel or services.
Department heads were asked to look at cutting equipment expenses first and also look at reducing expenses for travel, training and maintenance, he said. The "last area" to look for budget savings would be in personnel.
And, when department heads need to find savings in personnel, they were to delay filling vacant positions, Pablo said.
There's been "no actual cut in positions," he said.
Phillips said that while the positions remain, they're unfunded and the loss of that money will have an impact. The combination of cuts to overtime and unfunded vacant positions will leave the department about $3.5 million short of what it needs to maintain current services, he said.
"We cannot provide the same level of service. We have to cut back," he said. "I'm not complaining. That's the fact of life."
Phillips said that the Police Department already has cut back spending on training and travel.
Pablo said the Tavares administration is aware of negotiated pay raises due to police officers, and "we made sure we covered that."
He maintained that police should not need to cut positions or services.
Tavares said her administration is committed to honoring negotiated pay raises for police officers and firefighters. But pay for government employees whose salaries are in negotiations is being kept at current levels, she said.
Tavares said she understands the department has done a "great job" recently with recruiting new officers, and it has asked to fill positions for a new recruit class - a request that would be granted.
Phillips said Pablo acknowledged the department's request to reduce unfunded positions from 37 to 25, but he wouldn't know the administration's final spending plan until the mayor unveils her budget Friday.
The mayor said her administration is preparing to deal with a tough budget cycle, trying to keep spending at current levels while a number of factors remain unknown, such as whether the state will try to balance its budget by taking a greater share of transient accommodations tax revenue.
"We don't know what's going to happen at the state level," she said.
Overall, the mayor said county departments have responded well to calls for reduced spending, cutting money for travel and training, for example.
Federal stimulus money should help soften the impacts of reduced revenue, Tavares said.
She pointed out that the Police Department is expected to get $274,649 for anti-crime projects, although it wasn't known yet what programs would be funded or to what extent.
* Brian Perry can be reached at citydesk@mauinews.com.
