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Berkeley has $3.5 million more than it had anticipated, but $7.5 million less than it needs to get its recurring expenses in line with its recurring revenues, city officials reported at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. 

A booming real estate market, producing a higher than expected return on property transfer taxes, is responsible for the windfall, but City Manager Phil Kamlarz has cautioned against spending the bulk of the money to spare city programs slated for cuts. 

Even though the appearance of $3.5 million effectively cuts the city’s deficit to $4 million, Kamlarz is still calling it a $7.5 million deficit since he proposes spending the windfall to buy new items rather than patching holes in the budget. 

“We want to be responsible,” Kamlarz said at a media briefing Thursday. He feared that by allocating the money to save city programs endangered by the looming cuts, the city would merely be delaying inevitable cuts in future years. “It’s good budgeting to get recurring revenues and expenditures in balance. We might as well deal with this sooner rather than later.” 

On Tuesday, the council delayed a vote until next week on Kamlarz’ proposal to devote $2.4 million of the windfall toward the purchase of a police and fire dispatch system. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington raised the loudest objection to the city manager’s plan to immediately set aside most of the $3.5 million for a new dispatch system. 

“Just because we have $3.5 million more than we are budgeted for doesn’t mean we have to spend it right away,” said Worthington, who wants to delay action on the city manager’s recommendations until this spring when the council considers the entire budget. 

Currently Berkeley Police use a 13-year-old computer-aided dispatch system (CAD) that police brass says keeps them from providing accurate and timely information to the public. CAD data is based on information received in the initial call to police, not the final report. If the incident differs from the dispatch call, police must manually correct the data into their records system, which Captain Doug Hambleton previously told the Daily Planet could take weeks to months. 

Police thought they were finished with CAD three years ago when they acquired a $700,000 dispatch program, but the system never worked, and the city has since returned it for an undisclosed refund. 

Kamlarz stressed that the city must act quickly to replace CAD because its manufacturer will no longer service it after next year, but although most councilmembers appeared to support the purchase they were wary about buying another faulty system. 

“I assume it is necessary, but we have to figure if we have to spend that much money and how we can avoid getting another bum system,” said Councilmember Dona Spring. She requested that city staff produce a report detailing the price and performance of dispatch systems purchased by neighboring cities over the last 10 years. 

On Thursday, Kamlarz said the city had not yet settled on a new dispatch system and would request bids from manufacturers later this year. 

Kamalarz also proposed spending $500,000 to help close the deficit in a fund for transportation improvements, $250,000 to fund a lawsuit against UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan, $30,000 for a solar bond fund match, and $300,000 for technology to improve customer service. The council also postponed the manager’s request to provide feedback on consolidating and reducing meeting sessions for city commissions, which Kamlarz estimated could save $120,000. 

The council, which focused solely on the budget Tuesday, did authorize Kamlarz to confer with unions over a plan to save money by shutting down non-essential city services one day a month beginning in July. 

Rising labor and benefits cost and declining revenues plunged the city in to the red three years ago, and appear likely to dent future budgets as well. City officials project a $3.4 million deficit in fiscal year 2007 and a $2.4 million deficit in 2008 and 2009. 

With more available money this year than anticipated, a battle is already afoot over how to spend it. Neighborhood leaders and fire department members urged the council Tuesday to restore a department ladder truck it took out of service part-time last November to help balance this year’s budget. 

“Money should not have been a reason to reduce the hours of operation of the fire truck in the first place,” said Dean Metzger, president of the Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Association. “Now in our opinion even the money issue is moot.”  

Cutting funding for fire department overtime that helped staff the truck company—one of two in Berkeley—hasn’t kept the truck out of service every night as anticipated, according to fire department officials. Over the last 89 evenings since the cutback, the company was in operation 28 nights when the fire department was fully staffed and didn’t need overtime to man the truck. 

Under the current deficit reduction plan, the fire truck is slated to be eliminated beginning in July. Other positions slated for cuts include school crossing guides, and seven vacant police officer jobs. 

While the council debates how to spend the unanticipated revenue, it must also determine how to extract concessions from employees to help balance the budget. By an 8-1 vote (Worthington, no) the council authorized Kamlarz to begin discussions with city unions about closing non-essential city services one day a month to save $1.2 million in the general fund.  

Last year the city realized the same savings by striking a deal with all of their unions except the firefighters to defer scheduled salary increases. As part of that deal, however, the city surrendered its right to compel the unions to take pay cuts for the remainder of their contracts. Kamlarz said Thursday that union leaders have indicated they won’t entertain similar concessions this year. 

Before Tuesday’s meeting, the council met with union representatives, who councilmembers said were angry over the proposal because police and firefighters were immune to the cuts since public safety is considered an essential service. 

“It’s grossly unfair to only be negotiating with certain employees when some of the highest paid employees are untouched,” Worthington said. 

According to a staff report, most city departments are on budget for the current fiscal year. The one department significantly over budget is the fire department, which due to high numbers of employees on workers compensation and paid leave is projected to be $510,000 over budget.  

During Tuesday’s meeting department officials also revealed that the city pays to keep an engine above Memorial Stadium on UC Berkeley football game days. 

The tax on property transfers is forecast to be $4.5 million more than the city had budgeted. On the flip side, several revenue sources have come in below budget, with the poorest performer remaining parking fine revenue, slated to fall $400,000 short of projections.