Fire Chief Rocco Forte presented details of his plans to cut nearly $4 million at a meeting Tuesday afternoon with Mayor R.T. Rybak and members of the City Council.
Police officials didn't want to discuss specific cost-cutting measures, but Council Member Dan Niziolek said that Chief Robert Olson is expected to propose $7 million in cuts, including the 150 layoffs.
Niziolek, chairman of the Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee, said he hoped the city could find ways to soften the blow and to decrease the number of layoffs.
Minneapolis faced money problems even before the state budget crisis. Gov. Tim Pawlenty's proposed cuts in state aid have exacerbated the city's fiscal woes.
"We planned for a worst-case scenario years ago," Forte said. "This is the worst-case scenario."
Among the firefighters to be released are 10 cadets who are still in training. Forte's plan calls for the department, which had a $44 million budget this year, to trim from 433 department members to 318. That figure includes attrition.
Forte's plan is expected to be voted on by the full City Council in a special meeting at 1 p.m. Thursday. Rybak said he expects that Forte will be given the authority to make the cuts.
Olson is expected to present his budget proposal Thursday. He said that his command staff has been looking hard at the effect of reductions on services.
There are several plans in place, but his worst-case scenario could have the department trimming $18 million in 2003-04. Last year, the Police Department's budget was $92 million. The department has about 1,050 employees, including about 850 sworn officers.
Forte said that for the Fire Department, acting quickly, while not something he relishes, is less painful than waiting to make the tough decision.
"I'm doing this now to save jobs later," Forte said. "For every week we wait, we will have to cut two to three firefighters. The only thing that's keeping us sane is that we will bring all of these people back."
In a nine-page report distributed at Tuesday's meeting, Forte pointed out ways to secure firefighters' jobs in the future and ideas for raising revenue. One priority is to maintain training to ensure that firefighters who are laid off can keep up their emergency-response certification.
"When we can bring them back, we don't want to have to train them again," Forte said. "We want them to be able to go right back to work."
He also vowed that response times to residents would not climb above the standard set by the National Fire Protection Agency. Those standards include a first response in less than five minutes 90 percent of the time and having 15 firefighters at the scene of a fire in less than eight minutes 90 percent of the time.
The standard also calls for four firefighters to work each rig. That standard is not currently being met in Minneapolis, and under Forte's proposal, that number will be three. There are no plans to close any fire stations, Forte said.
"We expected some cuts," said Tom Thornberg, president of the Fire Department union. "We knew we weren't going to escape cutless, but we were hoping that the cuts wouldn't be this severe."
Thornberg said the union would listen to any alternatives that might help save jobs, including pay reductions.
More than half the police personnel cuts proposed by Olson would involve sworn officers, authorities said. The depth of such proposed cuts before the governor's numbers are finalized concerns Sgt. John Delmonico, the president of the Minneapolis police federation.
"Depending on who you talk to, the cuts could be minimal or it could be as high as 150," he said. "We don't want to push the panic button before the city really looks hard at the state's numbers and the city has looked at excess that can be trimmed from other departments."
Niziolek said he hopes the city can work hard to shave the numbers by finding other funds, such as from an entertainment tax that generates money for the Target Center.
The Police Department already has decided not to fill a captain's job and a deputy chief's job, which would save a minimum of $160,000. Other cost-saving moves include eliminating or shifting the crime prevention officers and the civilian specialists who partner with them and merging Park Police with city police.
Some of these ideas may vaporize or could be tweaked as Minneapolis adjusts to what happens at the Legislature. But as the speculation intensifies, precinct inspectors are trying to keep their officers focused on the job.
"The rumors are out there," said Inspector Sharon Lubinski, head of the Third Precinct in south Minneapolis. "I tell them to just let the dust fall from the political and budget discussions."
As is the case in the Fire Department, Inspector Tim Dolan, head of the Fourth Precinct in north Minneapolis, said that each passing month could lead to another person who might lose a job.
"We're hoping for a savior from across the river," Dolan said. "There will be several major decision points before any cuts are made, so the city has to make some decisions, too."
Some things budgeted to happen this year in Minneapolis, such as the addition of 12 officers to the department's traffic unit, could be on hold. Officials also are looking at delaying the promotion of officers to a higher rank.
The Fire Department will continue to keep its response times low, in part, by sharing resources with neighboring cities, Forte said. To increase revenues, it will examine allowing sponsorship of fire rigs and charging insurance companies for extracting crash victims from vehicles, he said.
In St. Paul, the City Council has approved cutting 116 jobs, including 41 layoffs. But neither police officers nor firefighters will lose their jobs under the plan.
The St. Paul Council approved $1.6 million in cuts for the Fire Department to help balance the 2003 budget. The savings comes from leaving 14 firefighter vacancies unfilled, postponing replacement of vehicles and reducing overtime for training.
The Police Department cuts of $3.3 million include forgoing vehicle purchases, eliminating the mounted horse patrol and cutting three commanders.
A second round of proposed cuts is expected to be announced today in order to balance the 2004 budget.
-- Staff writer Her
