Avoiding the descent

Costa Mesa police don’t want to get rid of its helicopter patrol program and will likely find little to save in its budget to help recover from the damage of an ailing economy and dwindling money for the city, Police Chief Chris Shawkey said.

City leaders have instructed the heads of all city departments to look through their budgets for money to save, with the worsening economy forcing everyone to reduce expenses as revenues continue to decline. City Manager Allan Roeder said he has asked the police department to find more than $420,000 to cut by the end of the fiscal year in June.

Shawkey said everything in his department is subject to review for savings, including the Airborne Law Enforcement Services program that proves a police helicopter the department shares with Newport Beach and Santa Ana.

Shawkey said, however, there’s nothing to replace aerial enforcement, including the Orange County Sheriff’s helicopter. The department is disbanding its narcotics unit and reassigning those officers, because the police already have a detective division available to make drug arrests, he said.

“I don’t think we’d find any cost savings with [the sheriff’s helicopter] and we’d get less service,” he said.

The program, nicknamed ABLE, will cost the city more than $2.5 million by the end of June. Costs have risen 2.5% since the 2005-06 fiscal year.

“There’s not that much there to cut,” Shawkey said. “They don’t do a lot of extra-type stuff.”

Salaries and benefits have stayed someone consistent over the last four years, but maintenance, operation and other equipment costs have risen more than 8%, or about $475,000 to more than $2 million.

Since 2005-06, fuel costs for the program have nearly tripled, topping out this fiscal year at more than $510,000, or a full one-fifth of the entire program’s costs. Shawkey said city leaders are looking into their contract with the helicopter’s fuel provider. Equipment costs have increased over the years while employing people for the program has decreased.

Costa Mesa and Newport Beach split the costs of ABLE, with Santa Ana throwing in a small amount of money to use the helicopter as-needed.

“There’s a term we use — force multiplier,” Shawkey said of the chopper. “Let’s say we have to check a large area, the chopper can do it with two people, where we’d have to use five or six officers on the ground.”

Police are looking into reducing the aircraft’s flight hours, lease arrangement with a hangar at John Wayne Airport, their contracts with maintenance workers and if they can stretch another year out of aging equipment, officials said.

The program has been around since 1996. Costa Mesa provides four pilots and three part-time observers. Newport Beach provides three pilots, three mechanics and three part-time observers. Sana Ana provides one pilot and two part-time observers.

In the end, the program is just too valuable to push to the wayside, Shawkey said.

“That would not be a real possibility,” he said. “I would strongly oppose getting rid of the unit.”

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.