Carson officials: Few city workers will lose jobs

By using a combination of early retirement incentives and shuffling employees into vacant positions, Carson City officials believe few if any city workers will lose their jobs, City Manager Larry Werner said Friday.

And eight of the targeted 20 Sheriff's Department positions were saved when the school board voted last month to lower its bond debt rate.

Tasked with patching a $10 million budget shortfall, the city adopted measures last month that included eliminating about 44 positions for the 2010-11 fiscal year.

But today, the news is not so dire.

"It looks like we will find openings for most of our staff with the voluntary separation program. This way we're creating vacancies," Werner said. "We created incentives for those who were borderline or close to retirement, and quite a few of them indicated they were interested. The board approved a $500,000 cap (for incentives), so it looks like 20-25 people could be eligible."

Other positions that were vacated during this fiscal year were not filled in anticipation of the budget crisis.

To address the $10 million deficit, all 17 departments, the city manager and board of supervisors were asked to shave 10 percent from their expenses.

The Sheriff's Department, which stood to lose 20 positions as a result of the cuts, was hardest hit, but that all changed when the Carson City School Board voted to lower its debt rate from 47 cents to 43 cents.

That change freed up $500,000 that went to the city's general fund and was allocated to the Sheriff's Department, said Sheriff Kenny Furlong.

"Most are still gone, we're short 12 positions, but that enabled us to save eight positions," Furlong said.

Several deputy and civilian positions were saved. By saving the civilian positions, Furlong will be able to move deputies back onto the street who would have had to fill in on those jobs, such as jail bookings.

"We're very pleased, and I think this community needs to know that the school district really stepped up. I just sent an e-mail to (Superintendent) Richard Stokes today telling him that he and the school board have given a great return to this community."

To balance the budget, the city will also use $2 million of the landfill post closure fund and reduce the general fund ending balance to 5 percent, leaving $7.8 million to be cut. No increase in health benefits, cost of living increases or merit raises would save another $1.4 million, Werner said.

"We're getting to where we'll have a balanced budget, and we'll get there without Draconian measures, retaining most of our staff who were identified for layoffs," he said.

A plan to approach Carson City's six bargaining units with 2 percent across-the-board salary reductions didn't gain much momentum, Werner said.

"The truth is, it would have saved only $700,000 to $800,000 and would have saved some jobs, but not all. Then we would have had the issue of picking and choosing who has to go," Werner said.

"We also looked at salary rollbacks, but that was fraught with a lot of problems," he said. "If you tell your bargaining units, 'You can save all your members,' it would work, but telling them they'll save only about a third wouldn't.

"None of them except the deputies was willing to go that route," he said.

He said the option wasn't totally off the table for sometime in the future, especially since the city may face the same scenario again next year if the economy doesn't improve drastically.

Salary freezes are also under consideration.

"Unofficially, we've received positive indications from the bargaining units that they are willing to look at salary freezes, but we haven't heard from them all of them," Werner said.

The city's six bargaining units include the firefighters, fire battalion chiefs, deputies, sergeants, lieutenants and the employees association.

"What we've had to do is go back to where we were 10 years ago, so we need to look outside the box to maintain service levels. It can be really frustrating when departments have goals to improve their organizations and they're excited about the future, but then end up having to go backwards 10 years," Werner said.

A tentative budget is due April 15 to the state's Department of Taxation.