Lynchburg City Council generates potential budget changes

City Council generated a list of more than a dozen potential budget alterations during a work session Tuesday.

Suggestions included reducing or dismantling the D.A.R.E. and school resource officer programs, reappropriating money earmarked for a new city park and eliminating a new position created last year to oversee downtown parking.

Council members also raised the possibility of restoring funding for a handful of items, including a planned bump in tourism support and the hiring of two additional police cadets.

Each idea was placed on a list of possible additions and cuts that will be discussed further after council completes a review of the lengthy budget proposal’s details.

Placement on the list is not an indicator of a measure’s support among the full council. In order to make it on the list, an idea needs the backing of only one member.

The budget review process began Tuesday with a special 4½-hour work session that saw officials plow through the individual spending proposals for some 30 city departments.

During the presentations, council members asked questions and suggested changes. They proposed a total of eight cuts with a possible savings of about $1.26 million.

Six additions were also proposed at a combined cost of more than $500,000. The cost of two of those items — funding for an annual breakfast for the Mayor’s Youth Council and the possibility of developing early retirement incentives — were not immediately specified.

City Councilman Michael Gillette asked for a report on the D.A.R.E. and school resource officer programs, suggesting it might be best to reassign some or all of the officers in those divisions to regular police work.

“I’m going to go ahead and step on an absolute third rail,” he said, acknowledging the potential unpopularity of his suggestion. “Everyone watch because I’m going to light myself up here.”

While reassigning employees will not create any savings for the city, Gillette argued it might be the best allocation of the police department’s resources. In remarks to council, Chief Parks Snead noted the city saw violent crime rise by more than 3 percent in 2007 and expected the final figures for 2008 to show another jump of 4 percent.

Gillette, Ward I, asked if having more officers on the streets would help reverse that trend. The chief responded in the affirmative.

The city had at one time been observing a multi-year plan to increase the police force. A request for additional officers last year went unfunded due to budget constraints. This year, with the city’s economic outlook even darker, the department sought only two cadet positions.

Cadets are civilian trainees who work in all areas of the department and who officials hope will one day go on to become sworn officers.

The cadets were not recommended for funding by the city manager, but were placed on the potential addition list by council.

The emergency communications center, a division of the police department, requested money for three additional operators. Officials said the center is chronically understaffed and suffers from a 17 percent turnover rate due to the high-stress nature of its responsibilities.

Snead said addressing those deficiencies and expanding the communications staff was one of his top concerns.

“I’ll tell you, as chief of police, this is my priority for staffing,” he said. “We have an untenable situation over there.”

Council did not place the item on its additions list Tuesday.

Gillette asked Snead to prepare a report on the possibility of transferring either the two D.A.R.E. officers or some of the five school resource officers to patrol work.

He said he felt the efficiency of the D.A.R.E. program in particular should be examined.

“I don’t know what the answer is, but I think it’s worth asking,” he said.

Snead said he felt the school resource officers played an important part in school safety and that both of the targeted programs offer the department valuable opportunities for positive interaction with the community.

He said he planned to be “very supportive” of both programs in his future report.