By Dianne Anderson

Stuck in a $24 million budget rut, San Bernardino city is scraping the bottom of the budget barrel, trying to find a creative workaround for its extreme money woes.

In the fallout of a national budget crisis, seven of every ten city officials are dealing with their own city's deficit, either cutting or laying off personnel, or instituting hiring freezes. Most all cities have responded to severe budget times by slashing public safety, according to the National League of Cities.

Councilman Rikke Van Johnson said that while he is concerned about cuts to public safety departments, he thinks that they can safely operate within new projected limitations. Police and fire departments in San Bernardino city already gets more of the General Fund than many other municipalities in the country.

Typically, police and fire departments usually tap about 50 percent of the General Fund, but for San Bernardino, that ratio is much higher at 48 percent to police, and 24 percent to the fire department, Johnson said.

“There have been positions cut, but there's still the same number of police on the street,” Johnson said, adding that the special units of the police department will be negatively impacted, such as the gang units.

Under proposed cuts, services for the community will be stretched as each of the departments are forced to cut 8 percent from each of the city's departments.

Johnson said that he is equally concerned about keeping services going for Parks and Recreation, and that keeping the doors open to the Delmann Heights Community Center was a good move toward public safety.

Although there are no official local studies, he’s almost certain that closing down community centers result in more calls for service and resources expended than if they had been left open.

“When we close a community center, it has a negative impact in other departments such as police. We experienced that when we closed Nicholson Community Center,” he said. “The crime level spiked behind that closure.”

Under the proposed budget, $11 million in cuts over the next two years will help fill the city's $24 million dollar hole. At the same time, city officials are scrambling to find whatever potential revenue, like possibly parking meters, to make back some of the deficit.

Johnson described the city as “unhealthy,” showing a $1.7 million reserve, while many other cities have maintained ten percent reserves.

As it stands, each department must give back 8% of its budget, with department heads deciding where the cuts will come from. In the coming days, Parks and Rec, the City Attorney’s Office and City Council will have to come back with their recommendations for cuts.

Before coming on board with San Bernardino, City Manager Charles McNeely is credited with bringing Reno out of economic distress, which won him widespread praise for his efficiency in government for bringing downtown Reno alive and out of its deep recession.

But San Bernardino and the national economy are treading far worse times with record low tax revenues, particularly from the crashed housing market.

Mr. McNeely was not available for comment by press time.

Because of sluggish Gross Domestic Product growth, the League of Cities estimates 18 months to two years for municipal budgets to bounce following this recession.

Last month, the League, along with the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties, released its estimates that over the next two fiscal years, the national budget crisis will have lost half a million government jobs, along with harsh cuts to public service.

The League projected that U.S. cities were working with about $400 billion in revenues to spare last year, but over the next two fiscal years are up against $56 billion and $83 billion until 2012.

NLC President, Mayor of Riverside, Ron Loveridge stated in the report that cuts to the cities will have a great impact to community services and local economies.

“Every city employee lost means one more person in the community without work.  Our

communities suffer from lost services, whether it’s less police on the streets or the closing of

a local library.  Cities are also the backbone of their regional economies, where investments in

infrastructure and services provide a platform for private sector investment and growth,” he said.