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Dec 22, 2008 10:12 am US/Central
Cash-Strapped Cities Eyeing Police, Fire Cuts
ST. PAUL (WCCO) ―
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Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, public safety budgets have grown to represent larger and larger chunks of the municipal budget pie. (File)
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Cash-strapped cities in Minnesota with little left to cut are now turning their attention to police and fire departments.
Doing so means breaking one of those unwritten rules of politics: You don't cut public safety, especially after the Sept. 11 attacks.
For example, Richfield officials have raised the possibility of laying off 16 of 43 police officers. In St. Paul, Mayor Chris Coleman says the city won't add the planned 14 new police officers and one new firefighter.
"We've heard anecdotally from a lot of our cities that they're concerned that cuts would have to be made to their public safety," said Rachel Walker, a policy analyst with the League of Minnesota Cities.
Last week, Gov. Tim Pawlenty trimmed $110 million in aid to Minnesota cities, and much deeper cuts to local government aid have been all but promised in the face of the looming $4.85 billion budget deficit facing the governor and state legislators in January.
Other municipal services have been under strain since 2003 cuts to state aid, leaving public safety something of a last frontier for budget cutters to explore.
Still, some city officials said it's hard to imagine their citizens accepting reductions in public safety in their communities.
"My suspicion would be that no one wants to come out against the police and fire department, especially after 9/11," Stillwater Mayor Ken Harycki told the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Indeed, in most cities public safety budgets have ballooned in the years since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington -- becoming an ever-larger piece of the municipal spending pie.
In the St. Paul suburb of Maplewood, the police department's day-to-day operating expenses increased more than 60 percent from 2001 to 2006 -- a period in which the city's overall operating expenses increased 14 percent.
"When you add officers, you typically also need to add squad cars and equipment," said Julie Lehr, a spokeswoman for Woodbury, where police have been cross-trained as firefighters to save money.
Even if some municipalities avoid cuts to public safety, few have any confidence of being able to add new officers anytime soon.
"The budget outlooks are not supporting additional personnel," said John Gannaway, police chief in Stillwater, which added a new officer every year between 2001 and 2006.
For some cities, the budget constraints are likely to conflict with recent population growth -- and resulting need for more cops on the street.
In Blaine, where the population grew 18 percent since 2005, the 59-officer department is struggling to patrol the 20 miles of new roads that were added in that time. Even streets in planned developments that never materialized have to be patrolled, Mayor Tom Ryan said.
Blaine is the rare city with plans to add a single officer to its payroll in 2009. But Ryan is worried about what's likely to be another wave of state cuts.
Public safety is "a priority that we're not looking to change," Ryan said. "But then, I can't say what's going to happen this year. It looks scary to me."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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