43 unionized city employees face layoffs

Editor’s note: This corrects an earlier version.

If the layoffs proposed to help to balance Costa Mesa’s budget take effect, rank-and-file municipal workers would absorb the brunt of the job losses.

The majority of the cuts will be drawn from the city’s employee association, which concerns Helen Nenadal, senior maintenance technician and president of the Costa Mesa City Employee Assn.

“We all need to take the same direct hit,” she said.

Costa Mesa administrators have proposed slashing 51 full-time positions, or reducing some of them to part time, and eliminating 26 part-time positions to plug a projected $16.4 million deficit in next year’s budget.

The employee association has 246 members — 43 of whom face losing their jobs if the city goes ahead with its preliminary budget proposal.

City Manager Allan Roeder said that while he understands Nenadal’s position, the city’s management examines cuts from the viewpoint of how the community would be affected, not numbers in each of the associations.

“We honestly don’t look at it in terms of how many positions from each of the represented associations would be affected,” he said. “We are looking at it in terms of what it means for reductions in programs and services.”

While the city cannot eliminate the same number of employees from police, fire and management, Nenadal said it can equally participate in the process of balancing the budget by taking some reductions in benefits.

“It’s a family, we’ve been working with these people for years and years, and it’s not one group working against anther group,” she said. “We all have to come together to make this happen. We just all have to take part and come together.”

The Police Department also faces cuts to its sworn and non-sworn ranks. The head of the police union could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

If the city implements the layoffs, it will be the first time since the recession began, Roeder said.