City to Lay Off More Workers, Including Sworn Officers

Another round of went out to city employees Tuesday. Three sworn police officers were among those noticed.

Police Chief Bill Goswick said police morale was down Tuesday, but his department was too busy trying to learn how to do more with less to dwell on its losses.

“We’re in the process of figuring out how we’re going to maintain (patrol on) the streets,” Goswick said. It is too soon to know how public safety will be affected when the layoffs happen in mid-April, he said.

Before June 2011, when the city had its second strong in one year, the police force had never seen layoffs.

By the time the newest employee cutbacks take affect, Hercules will have lost a third of its police force compared to this time last year. The city will have 20 sworn officers patrolling its roughly 24,000 residents, dropping Hercules further below the one-officer-to-every-one-resident safety standard.

Four unidentified administrative employees were also given layoff notices Tuesday, Duran said. The Parks and Recreation Department received four notices, too. One part-time and three full-time employee positions were cut, but those staffers will be able reapply for newly-created parks and recreation jobs as part of the department’s restructuring efforts. 

“I hope this will be the last cut, but we still need to see how our revenues come in versus budget for the next few months as we continue to review this year’s numbers and put together next year’s budget,” City Manager Duran said in an email Tuesday.

Duran said that the 2011-2012 budget was balanced with $850,000 in one-time monies and an additional $250,000 illegal franchise fee on wastewater. Additionally, the city’s general fund subsidized the Hercules Redevelopment Agency and the Hercules Municipal Utility to the tune of $500,000. The general fund will not get those funds back.

That leaves the city with a $1.6 million structural deficit.  “Some expenses can be trimmed from operating costs, but the bulk has to come from salaries and benefits,” Duran said. “There is nowhere else to go in the short term,” he said about the layoffs.

Other than attempts to liquidate real estate assets and stop some financial bleeding by a possible sale of its electrical utility, the city’s plan for financial salvation is through . 

Tuesday evening, the Hercules City Council passed an amended resolution to put a half-cent sales tax increase measure on the June ballot. The tax would increase Hercules' sales tax from 8.25 percent to 8.75 percent and bring in around $500,000 in annual revenue, according to city documents.

The council agreed to possibly revisit its tax revenue options before the November election.