Mayor Dan Sullivan laid off 27 city employees Thursday and said he's not filling another 56 vacant positions as he described his latest plans to close a budget shortfall he now estimates at $8.9 million.

The changes likely will affect a broad range of city services, from operating hours at swimming pools to children's programs at branch libraries, slower responses to questions about zoning issues and new, added duties for several firefighters making up for others who are being laid off.

The adjustments should deliver about $6 million in savings between now and when the city's budget year ends Dec. 31. Sullivan said he and his executive team still have around $2.5 million or more to go.

The mayor said he has already started working on the next round of spending reductions, and that he plans to turn to city employee unions for their ideas next.

"So far we've received no response from the union groups in terms of any specific suggestions," he said. The city will meet with unions again in coming days, he said, to try to find things "they might be able to do to assist us here."

He didn't offer a hard and fast timetable for deciding on those cuts, but indicated again he wants to do it soon because the end of the city's budget year is now less than five months away.

The series of spending and service reductions the mayor announced at a news conference Thursday amounts to about $5.8 million. Adding another $169,000 in savings from a 5 percent cut to executive salaries and about $277,000 in additional revenues means Sullivan is about two-thirds of the way to solving the budget dilemma he says he discovered shortly after taking office July 1.

Sullivan said the city also is looking at a likely shortfall of about $25 million in next year's budget, and that his department heads will be expected to deliver another round of savings suggestions for the 2010 budget. He needs to present next year's spending plan to the Assembly by early October.

Sullivan's latest reductions are the latest in a series of steep cuts. Matt Claman, the acting mayor for the first six months of the year, had announced about $17 million in budget cuts months ago -- his solution to a budget deficit discovered after Claman replaced Mark Begich, the former mayor who left office in January after his election to the U.S. Senate.

Sullivan then said he and his new budget staff discovered the additional $9 million deficit soon after he was sworn in on July 1.

The city's original 2009 budget totaled about $433 million when passed by the Assembly in late November.

ONE ARSON INVESTIGATOR OUT

Sullivan said he tried to focus on preserving public safety functions and jobs in settling on the latest round of cuts. None of the 27 layoffs hit the Anchorage Police Department, although APD will not fill 13 vacant positions.

The fire department, however, will lose eight employees. Five of those jobs are largely support staff, but the other three are fire safety officers whose jobs are to look out for safety problems at fire scenes. Another seven vacant fire positions will not be filled, including one of the department's two arson investigators.

But Sullivan and acting chief Doug Schrage have decided against laying off three battalion chiefs -- people who serve as incident commanders at major fires. And he also rejected the idea of closing a fire department engine company by laying off another 12 firefighters.

Fire union President Tom Wescott said the safety officer positions are a federal mandate imposed a few years back. Sullivan's budget breakdown says their duties will be handled by fire captains, but Wescott said that won't work very well. "The captain has his own job to do," Wescott said.

James Gray, a fire inspector, said the arson investigator job is an important, "highly specialized" job. "It's not a job that (just) anyone else in the fire department can do," Gray said.

And what happens when the one remaining investigator gets sick or goes on vacation? Gray asked. "We've had some ugly arsons in this town."

Among other budget cuts rejected by Sullivan was the idea of laying off three city attorneys who work in a joint city/federal anti-gang program. Sullivan also decided not to raise People Mover transit fares, another option before him.

The buses are used by a lot of people who need transportation to get to work and around the city, especially during the current economic downturn, Sullivan said. "We don't want to balance our budget on the back of these folks."

PARKS & REC HARDEST HIT

The hardest hit agency, in terms of total jobs, is the Parks and Recreation Department, which absorbed 13 layoffs, almost half the total, as well as another 5 positions left vacant. That is likely to affect hours of operation at swimming pools, and other recreation facilities.

Parks and Rec Director Jeff Dillon later said he expects the mayor to appoint a committee to look for ways to use volunteers and money from private foundations to support some of those services.

Sullivan does not plan to replace retired Planning Director Tom Nelson this year. He's also laying off three other planning department employees -- of about 35 altogether -- and postponing completion of a downtown earthquake hazards study at least until next year.

Sullivan and his budget team are scheduled to brief the Assembly on the new budget changes at a work session today.

Two members attended his press conference, and one, Elvi Gray-Jackson, said she wished the mayor had laid his cards out for the Assembly before putting them out for the public. She also said Sullivan's cuts may be premature.

City revenues could still recover before the end of the year, Gray-Jackson said, and some departments usually end the year with unspent funds.