Long Beach's "Problem" Threatens Public Safety, Pensions

Struggling to balance its budget, Long Beach is now grappling with the once-heretical ideas of reducing its commitment to public safety and public employee pensions, once untouchable issues that more and more local governments are having to reconsider.

The struggle demands not only tough decisions on how to apportion sacrifices, but also raises questions about the fairness of backing away from promises made to employees.

It's not just that revenues are lagging in LA County's second largest city. In this unwelcome perfect storm, city expenses, particularly personnel costs are still rising due to decisions locked in years ago during more affluent times.

Governments are already several years down this road. Traditional belt-tightening looks to cut personnel cost. Yet the biggest chunk of the personnel cost is for public safety, police and fire.

Who wants to cut public safety?

"Nobody wants to cut police.  I don't want to cut anybody," Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster told NBCLA. "But the truth is we've got 18 and a half million dollars that we have to take out of this budget."

Foster says nearly 70 percent of the city's general fund now goes to the police and fire departments, up 10 percentage points in the past decade, as all city programs have faced pruning to a greater or lesser degree.

"I don't want to go beyond that," Foster said, warning that the port city of nearly half a million people would have to give up quality of life services such as libraries, parks, and filling pot holes.

"If we're just cops and firefighters, I don't want to live in a city like that," Foster said.

Now with around 900 sworn officers, the Long Beach Police Department is already down about 10 percent from its peak earlier in the decade. Last year's budget was the first to specifically reduce the number of authorized officers, cutting 60 positions. At the time, not all of the positions were actually filled, and the rest were accounted for through retirements.

Now the city is considering cutting another 27 to 76 officer positions. Police Chief Jim McDonnell told NBCLA he's hopeful any further personnel cuts can also be handled through attrition, so there would be no actual layoffs. But he says the impact would be felt. Response times may go up. Investigation follow-ups may not be as prompt. Officers will have less time to build community ties and follow-up suspicions.

It's tinkering with a formula that has seen crime drop steadily over the past eight years.

McDonnell came to Long Beach from Los Angeles, where even in the face of a nearly half-billion-dollar budget shortfall, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has steadfastly refused to consider lowering the number of authorized LAPD officers. Still, McDonnell recognizes his new city's priorities.

"We'll do the best we can with what we have," McDonnell said.

But losing even 76 officers would barely make a dent in the $18.5 million Foster calls the city's "problem." So he's looking elsewhere, and wading into the increasingly debated arena of public employee retirement plans. Do they rely on a level of prosperity last seen during the dot-com boom of the 1990s and no longer reliably attainable? Are they overly generous compared to what most taxpayers can receive working in the private sector?

Looking at the police department, Foster says the city's contribution to pension funding now accounts for 26 percent of total police personnel expenses. He says in three years that will rise to 45 percent.

Foster's background is business administration. He served as president of Southern California Edison until his 2006 retirement. His proposal for Long Beach: persuade employee unions to go without already negotiated pay raises, and instead use that money for pension contributions, crediting it toward the city portion. In most cases, Foster says employees pay 2 percent. He envisions that rising to 9 percent.

"Who do you know who can retire after 30 years at 90 percent of their pay?" Foster asks, daring to open the wedge of class conflict between public and private sector employees.

But Foster's arguments are not persuading the Long Beach Police Officers Association.

LBPOA President Steve James told NBCLA the mayor's expectation is unreasonable. James said officers have already made major sacrifices, noting that when officers and the city agreed to a new contract last year, the POA agreed officers would defer $5.2 million in scheduled raises to help the city balance its budget.

Without that, James said, "The city would have a $23 billion 'problem,'" pointedly using the mayor's word for the shortfall."

To help make up for another "problem," the unfunded liability in the pension fund, James said officers would consider contributing more to the Public Employee Retirement System, but not, he emphasized, to substitute for the city's share.

Last week, three of the city's smaller bargaining units agreed to swap pay raises for pension contributions, but the larger unions are resisting.

James said it's not fair to go back on commitments to officers who have already been sacrificing for the city. When pressed on where else the money comes from, James replied that perhaps Long Beach will have to consider cuts in other services.

These are issues that cities likely will be reconsidering for years to come. But in Long Beach, the time for this round of debate is rapidly running out.

By law, the city must adopt a balanced budget by Sept. 15, which is next Wednesday. The city council meets next on Tuesday.

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