Safety leaders want proof

Union leaders representing Costa Mesa’s police and firefighters declined to renegotiate their workers’ salaries and benefits until the city provides numbers proving that it has lost a significant amount of tax revenue.

City officials hoped the unions would accept preliminary financial projections as sufficient evidence that it is going through financial hard times and renegotiate contracts to address a predicted shortfall of more than $11 million in the fiscal year budget.

The move could stall any negotiations until fall, when the city expects to receive audited financial reports detailing how much money it took in over the fiscal year.

“I don’t believe in projections. I want to see solid numbers before we talk to our membership and open up contracts,” Police Assn. President Allen Rieckhof said, adding the that city’s projections have been incorrect many times before.

Although Costa Mesa doesn’t expect to get local sales data until next month at the earliest, city financial analysts are basing their predictions on national statistics that show a drop in retail sales of about 10% over the holiday season. Other indicators suggest that Costa Mesa’s sales may be even lower, though.

Sales tax — much of it from South Coast Plaza and the auto dealerships on Harbor Boulevard — is the city’s primary revenue source.

Even if all city workers — police officers, firefighters and office staffers — were to take a 10% cut in compensation off the top, it would not even come close to solving the budget problem, said the president of the Firefighters Assn. Tim Vasin, citing a comment from city Finance Director Marc Puckett last week.

“Council needs to look into other sources of revenue outside of sales tax if they want to maintain service levels from all city departments,” Vasin said.

A subcommittee composed of union and city representatives are about to start meetings to comb through more in-depth financial numbers, but the city won’t officially know how much revenue it made this fiscal year until September or October, said Administrative Services Director Steve Mandoki.

A provision in employee contracts states that if a combination of sales tax, hotel tax and property tax go down by more than 3% in a given year contracts are reopened even without the consent of both parties. But the writing is already on the wall that a drop at least that big is coming, city officials said.

“Nationwide revenues are dipping way below that and that’s why we want to talk now and not wait,” Mandoki said.

Mayor Allan Mansoor has said that cutting staff may be necessary if the city doesn’t succeed in convincing its workers to take pay and benefit cuts.

“If things are as bad as they appear to be then layoffs are a very real, unfortunate possibility,” Mansoor said.

Rieckhof said the Police Assn. is doing its best to cooperate with the city.

The department is already trying to shave money from its budget by cutting down on overtime hours, he said. For instance, officers are filling out the paperwork that goes with arrests in the middle of the day so that they don’t have to stay as long at the end of a shift accruing overtime hours.

“When the economy was doing good we didn’t go to the city and say we think next year is going to be a great year so let’s open up the books and give ourselves a raise now,” Rieckhof said.

“The city has a reserve and should have saved for hard economic times and if they didn’t, shame on them. That’s why I find it hard to go to the table without looking at the other options they have.

“All the associations are on the same page. We’re reasonable people and we want to do the right thing in tough economic times, but we have to look out for our members.”

Reporter ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.