A split Fullerton City Council this week passed a budget that freezes hiring, including vacant police officer positions, and slashes library services and graffiti abatement.
Adopted with a 3-2 vote, the budget outlined about $7 million in cuts.
A bulk of the savings comes from leaving two dozen staff positions vacant. Fullerton will save about $5.1 million, in part, by not hiring a two-member police command staff, four sworn officers and a fire marshal.
The city is also adding non-regular hours for three part-time library staffers instead of reinstating a library technology position.
Funding for the New Year’s Eve “First Night” event is being axed while the Fourth of July celebration is whittling down to a fireworks-only show.
“Cutting anything is brutal,” Mayor Fred Jung said during Tuesday’s council meeting. “[It’s] brutal for our staff, it’s brutal for our residents [and] brutal for the people that do business in this town. But at a time when ordinary Fullertonians, and those that have businesses here, are forced to make very difficult choices with their own money, [it] seems irrational that government shouldn’t be exercising the same discipline.”
The budget process began in March, the same month city staff identified accounting errors in an update, including a $2.9 million clerical error dating to 2022, that led elected officials to believe they had more money in reserves than they did.
Fullerton engaged an auditing firm, which found no fraud but recommended the city hire a chief financial officer.
By July, city staff reduced a roughly $14 million deficit to about $4 million.
The final proposal had its detractors.
Councilmember Ahmad Zahra questioned the decision to slash the library system’s books collection budget to save $240,000. The city is relying on the Library Foundation and Friends of the Library support groups to subsidize purchases.
“The library is supposed to provide books,” he said. “This is a big burden on a nonprofit.”
As the budget also outlined cuts to the city’s graffiti-abatement efforts in order to pocket an extra $150,000, another councilmember aired concerns about public safety.
“When we have a whole wall on Placentia Avenue that gets tagged occasionally with people trying to warn other people that they’re going to kill them in the streets. We have to report that,” said Councilmember Shana Charles. “I’m glad that the graffiti removal was there to be able to take those things down.”
Charles asked Fullerton Police Chief Jon Radus how the hiring freeze would affect police work.
“The workload is going to be spread out among others,” Radus said. “I’m grateful that our overtime is going to be readjusted to what our accurate numbers are. We will have to use overtime to fill some of those operations.”
Supporters of the proposed budget framed it as tough but necessary. They touted the budget as forward-thinking with a projected $16 million beginning fund balance every year for three years, instead of narrowly focusing on a single fiscal year.
“I understand we need to make some strict decisions, and we were able to find some necessary changes to help the departments out that need it,” said Councilmember Jamie Valencia. “This isn’t a say-all, be-all for the budget, and there is room for improvement throughout the year. Our city manager is looking into that. We are on the right path.”
Zahra blasted the budget as “irresponsible and reactionary” and believed the city could have taken a more measured approach.
But he found himself in the minority alongside Charles.
Jung, Valencia and Councilmember Nick Dunlap approved the budget over their objections. Their approval came more than a month after the state’s deadline on July 1, the start of the fiscal year.