Atwater adopts budget with police cuts, but plans to pay down debt

The Atwater City Council adopted a $13.9 million spending plan this week with projections to put more than $1.2 million towards its longstanding debt while making a number of cuts to services, according to officials.

City staffers said they are looking at a "conservative estimate" of $1 million in sales of property owned by the city and another $200,000 to be collected from new marijuana-based businesses, according to the plan. The City Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to move forward with the plan, which ties those new revenues to paying done its debt.

The city has a $2.4 million general fund debt and $7.7 million in unfunded retirement liabilities. It also owes $2.3 million to its own sewer fund.

Despite the daunting debt, Councilmember Brian Raymond said the 2018-19 fiscal plan is "the best" he's seen since winning a seat in 2014. "We're finally addressing our debt and have a plan in place," he said.

The plan also expects to reduce spending because the city has frozen four empty police officer positions, a sergeant’s position and has cut one and a half battalion chief jobs from Calfire's Atwater team. All of those police positions are open and no one will be laid off, according to city leaders.

They also expect to reduce spending by farming out services like planning and engineering to contractors, city leaders said. The council will be considering moving its public safety dispatch over to the Merced County Sheriff’s Office.

The elected officials combed through the budget on Wednesday trying to find even small savings, grilling city employees, for example, over whether they need so many printers within walking distance.

Atwater is facing a potential audit from the state in August and it needs to be able to show it is on the path to solvency, according to Councilmember Paul Creighton. He said the new budget is more transparent than the city has been in close to a decade.

"When the state comes in to audit us, they can see we have a true and real budget for the first time. Not something based on fictitious numbers or assumptions," he said. "That's what led us to this crisis that we're in is made up numbers."

The plan closely mirrors the ideas left behind by former interim City Manager Art de Werk, who made a case for the cuts and land sales about a week before he left the city. He had filed a "hostile work environment" claim on March 19 and came to a settlement with the city before resigning April 3.

The city has seen five different city managers since Dec. 2016, and the council has often been split on personnel matters and budget-related decisions. Lori Waterman has been the interim city manager since April.