Westside Budget Roundup : WEST HOLLYWOOD : Council Signals It Will Spare Social Services

The West Hollywood City Council indicated during a special hearing Monday that it will approve an increase in funding for social-service providers next year despite the need for cutbacks in all city departments.

The council’s decision sends a clear message that it remains committed to social services despite the city’s need to tighten its belt, some city officials say.

The council plans to adopt a $38.6-million budget for 1991-92 at its regularly scheduled meeting Monday.

This is the first time since the city’s 1984 incorporation that the council has been forced to cut operating expenses to balance the budget. The council was faced with the task of cutting $426,000 from the operating budget.

City Manager Paul Brotzman had proposed that the council cut social-service funding by 5% and that it hold back a 5% cost of living increase for employees of providers, which would have saved the city $175,000.

But the council, responding to arguments from AIDS Project Los Angeles, the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center and others, decided that any cuts would make it impossible to accommodate growing caseloads.

“The city is one of the stable sources of financing for many programs,” said City Councilman Paul Koretz. “It is a necessity to keep levels of service intact when you consider the number of seniors living near the poverty line, the number of people living with AIDS and the number of new immigrants.”

Although West Hollywood is not unlike many other cities that find themselves in a financial crunch, the experience is a new one for the young city. Assistant City Manager Bob Edgerly said that while revenues in the past have met the city’s annual projections, this year they came up short. The finance department now anticipates that revenue from the city’s sales and use tax and from its transient occupancy tax will fall about $1 million short of original projections.

The problem will be compounded in the coming fiscal year by the loss of state funding. The city will lose about $2 million in money distributed to local governments from the state. The city will receive $1.8 million, about half of the allotment it received last year.

The funding is allocated to municipalities based on population. West Hollywood had no 1980 Census figures on which to base its allocations, so its population was estimated by a formula that assumed there were three residents in the city for each of its 22,000 registered voters. The city had been receiving funds based on an estimated population of 67,000. But data compiled by the 1990 Census put the population at almost half that, with just over 36,000.

The city has instituted a number of measures to make up for the lost funds and to curb expenditures. Brotzman ordered all city department heads to cut excess from their budgets; the city also recently laid off three employees and eliminated an additional seven positions. In addition, 10 positions that were frozen about three months ago will remain vacant.

The city has eliminated its public services division, saving $149,000 by consolidating it with other departments. The council reduced the amount the city spends on attorney fees by $60,000, and funding for a proposed adult day-care center was cut by $87,500. Officials hope to save additional money by deferring a number of contracts until the next fiscal year. A computer and telephone system, for example, will not be upgraded this year, saving the city an estimated $300,000 in its operating budget.

“What we are talking about is a process of managing priorities and ranking the necessity of projects,” said Paul Arevalo, the city’s finance officer.

The budget news is not all bad. The city will collect $925,000 this year from a recently adopted business license tax, which will be set aside for capital improvement projects. And the city will save $292,000 by using private contractors instead of the county for its landscape/building maintenance contract. The funds saved will help pay for the city’s more costly items, including $8.7 million for sheriff’s services and $592,000 for solid waste management