Sullivan will trim city jobs and services

Sullivan said he's also asking employee unions to help close a new $9 million gap in this year's city budget and a projected $18 million deficit next year. The cost to the unions would be new and steeper wage and benefit give-backs in addition to concessions most of the bargaining groups agreed to earlier this year.

The alternative for the unions? Face the prospect of losing even more jobs.

During a press conference Thursday morning, Sullivan said public safety services are a priority and the last place he wants to cut, but that he thinks there's room for savings in bureaucracies across the city.

"We're not particularly interested in re-entering into complex contract negotiations," the new mayor said. "There's just no time. We've got a $9 million shortfall this year, possibly $18 million next year. We need help, and we're going to ask them for help."

Absent getting it, Sullivan said in a separate interview, more union employees will lose their jobs.

"It comes down to a very simple question," he said. "When you have more expensive employees and you don't have enough revenues, you end up with less employees. That's the trade-off with them: Do you want to maintain your employee base, or do you want to maintain the wage levels and benefit levels you got with less employees?"

According to Sullivan, city finances face a double whammy -- shrinking tax and investment revenues caused in part by the nation's faltering economy and its carry-over impact on tourism spending here, and several costly long-term union contracts approved last year.

Leaders of two of the city's bigger unions, police and fire, said their bargaining units already have agreed to concessions that will save the city millions this year and next. Police Sgt. Derek Hsieh and Fire Capt. Tom Wescott said they are always willing to talk.

"I would have hoped for a more careful and measured approach with an enterprise as large as the municipality," Hsieh said. "This is a new administration and clearly they're going to be confronting some potentially very large problems. And the citizens of Anchorage must have a police and fire department and we need to be able to work through the problems constructively."

Wescott said the concessions offered by the fire union were approved by a unanimous Assembly vote, and that the new contract ties annual increases in future years to changes in inflation, a similar formula to the one used to set the city's tax cap each year.

"The men and women of the fire department work very hard," Wescott said. "There are a lot of pluses to the job, but there are also some sacrifices made."

Sullivan called the press conference at City Hall to release a thick set of transition reports put together by a team of dozens of volunteers. The reports address every city department and touch on issues ranging from the city's natural gas crunch to rising rates in four categories of violent crimes. But the mayor's plans for addressing the budget gaps this year and next dominated the discussion.

Sullivan said he thinks the budget can be trimmed without affecting critical services.

"We want to make sure that we ...maintain a safe community and that certain essential functions -- obviously, clearing snow off the roads -- aren't compromised," he said. "Other programs will be looked at very, very closely, and you're likely to see ... some personnel cuts."

Even in the important public safety departments there's room for cutting, he said.

"They have a variety of personnel that aren't directly related to on-the-street protection," Sullivan said. "There are some bureaucratic functions that we're hoping can be streamlined and prioritized."

Sullivan has already imposed a freeze on new city hires and travel. On Thursday, he said about 150 city executives and staffers are taking a 5 percent wage cut.

"If we're going to be asking people to sacrifice either programs or certainly in some cases we might be losing positions ... the executive team is going to lead that effort," he said.

Sullivan said he also wants to attack violent crime, and that he plans to do so by focusing efforts in those areas.

"Those cities that have seen a decline in crime do so for a very simple reason," he said. "They put their cops where the crime is. We're going to focus much more strongly on community policing in those areas where we've seen high crime statistics."

Sullivan said City Manager George Vakalis will take the lead in addressing what the mayor sees as a potentially serious energy crisis ahead, particularly involving natural gas supplies.

"Over the last couple of winters we've come close to deliverability being compromised," he said. "That's unacceptable for a modern, progressive town."

Sullivan said he will meet with energy producers and put together a task force to look for long-term solutions to Southcentral's dwindling natural gas supplies.

If it looks like natural gas supplies are running short during a cold spell, just asking people to conserve energy is a start, he said. Other solutions might include "literally bringing in a tanker of gas and parking it in Cook Inlet to supply the system."

Three Assembly members attended the mayor's press conference. After it, Assemblyman Mike Gutierrez said it sounded like Sullivan has his priorities straight at a difficult time for the city.

"I don't envy him his job," Gutierrez said. "Everybody knew these were going to be tough times coming in. ... His stated priorities are good and I hope he sticks to those priorities."