By Roger H. Aylworth
The Chico Enterprise-Record
OROVILLE, Calif. — A divided Butte County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved another round of budget cuts, trimming a projected $19.1 million budget deficit by $4.1 million.
The cuts include laying off the equivalent of 42.3 full-time county staffers, and cutting the $2.5 million firefighting contract with the Cal Fire.
With one major exception, the proposed cuts are the same ones the supervisors didn’t act on three weeks earlier.
That change, passed on a 3-2 vote, is to not close six foothill fire stations in winter, including ones in the Forest Ranch area, Harts Mill and on the upper Paradise ridge.
Cal Fire-Butte County Fire Chief Henri Brachais told the board and the standing-room-only audience that by making cuts elsewhere and eliminating another field battalion chief position, he would be able to keep the foothill stations open year-round.
The $2.5 million cut in fire service includes “brownouts,” which involve closing two county stations a day on a rotating basis.
Deputy County Fire Chief George Morris explained the brownouts will be designed so adjacent stations will not go unmanned at the same time. The goal is to close down one in the north county and one in the south on any given day.
Brachais said the rotating closures will save $1.2 million a year.
The staff cuts will hit almost every other department in the county, but members of the public who spoke focused almost exclusively on fire and library services.
For about two hours a line of citizens came to the lectern to thank the board for finding a way to save the foothill stations and to object to the brownouts.
A smaller group asked the board to protect the funding for the library. The proposal called for reducing library staff by the equivalent of 51?2 full-time positions.
Derek Wolfgram, Butte library director, told the board the proposed cuts in the library budget would also result in the system losing another $75,000 in state money tied to county funding levels.
Joan Olmstead of the Chico Friends of the Library told the board that people would be willing to pay additional taxes for a “vibrant” library system.
Chico Supervisor Jane Dolan said libraries are an “essential element” for an educated population. She endorsed the idea of a secure, locally generated tax source for reliable library funding.
Both Dolan and Supervisor Maureen Kirk of Chico said they simply could not support the proposal if it included the rolling brownouts.
Kirk said she would reduce the county’s contingency fund, currently projected to be about $5 million for the coming fiscal year, to keep the stations open all the time.
Interim county Chief Administrative Officer Greg Iturria had earlier explained that beside the looming deficit, the county is facing the challenge of getting a one-year tax-anticipation loan to make sure there is enough cash on hand to pay bills and deal with unexpected needs.
He said reducing the contingency fund would not sit well with possible lenders.
Iturria, whose regular job is county chief financial officer, said prospective lenders would see such a cut as fiscally imprudent and could block Butte’s chance of getting such a loan.
Dolan said cutting the contingency fund “is imprudent but it is more imprudent to close fire stations.”
Kirk moved to approve the cut package, but reducing the fire department’s cut to $1.3 million, leaving the other $1.2 million to avoid the brownouts.
Dolan seconded the motion, but the motion died on a 2-3 vote when Bill Connelly of Oroville, 4th District Supervisor Steve Lambert, and Supervisor Kim Yamaguchi of Paradise voted no.
“We need to make a budget, and pass a budget, even if it is horrible to us, even if it includes brownouts, because we don’t have another way,” said Connelly.
In what he called a “reluctant” choice, Yamaguchi moved to approve the package with the brownouts, and that passed by the same 3-2 split.
Earlier in the meeting, Iturria said he would be coming to the board with at least two more bundles of proposed cuts to cover the rest of the $19.1 million in red ink.
Connelly referred to that when he said, “Everything we talked about not cutting will be on the table in May.”
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