CITY FREES UP $220,000 SAVINGS WILL FUND EXTRA MOTORCYCLE COP.

Byline: Amy Raisin  Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - City officials have freed more than $220,000 in Sheriff's Department funds for the 2003-04 budget, much of which will pay for an additional motorcycle deputy in January.

Hoping to avoid the cuts facing cities across the state, Santa Clarita City Manager Ken Pulskamp directed his department heads to scour their 2002-03 budgets for examples of inefficient spending.

The operations team at the Santa Clarita sheriff's station found four main areas of potential savings - to the tune of $222,000 - including the elimination of a vacant community service officer position and a reduction in vacation-related overtime.

``I was looking for a way we could get increased traffic enforcement, (because) the traffic situation in Santa Clarita warranted that,'' Pulskamp said. ``We treat Sheriff's like any of our departments, and I told all of our department heads to look at their budgets like it's their own business.''

The $163 million city budget, which must be approved by July 1, includes $11.8 million for police services, which are done under contract by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Up 2 percent from last year, the 2003-04 public safety budget pays for deputies, detectives, supervision, clerical support and equipment.

Unlike last year, however, the new budget will fund four community service officer positions instead of five, saving $47,000 in salary on a position that has been vacant in recent years.

The $25,000 previously set aside for use of a helicopter will be redirected as well, according to Pulskamp, because special emergency services like a helicopter or bomb squad are already budgeted as part of the county's overhead.

The decision not to provide a replacement for vacationing deputies and other station employees generated the biggest savings, an estimated $100,000 in overtime that will be reallocated to address the city's traffic issues.

While population statistics have jumped dramatically over the last 10 years - from 129,000 in 1993 to more than 158,000 last year - city traffic engineer Andrew Yi said the rate of traffic collisions has remained constant, about 1,000 collisions per 100,000 residents each year.

``Santa Clarita is constantly changing,'' Yi said. ``The population grows, we get new roads and new traffic patterns. The thought is that reallocating money to hire another motorcycle deputy will help address that.''

However, the number of fatal accidents jumped to 12 in 2002, and city officials said that is too high.

``This ties in to some of the terrible accidents we've had around the city,'' Pulskamp said. ``One of the ways to deal with that is to increase enforcement.''

The additional motorcycle deputy would start in January.

The city also plans to install red-light cameras at two intersections in January, a $250,000 element of a long-term, $2.6 million program unrelated to the sheriff's budget.

The City Council will hold a public hearing about the proposed budget at 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 23920 Valencia Blvd., in Valencia.

A breakdown of how the $11,843,230 sheriff's budget will be spent:

--$10,560: contractual services.

--$10,670,255: general law.

--$180,740: community service officers.

--$60,000: special events.

--$40,000: parking citations.

--$250,000: SANE officers.

--$631,675: liability costs.

Amy Raisin, [phone]

amy.raisin(at)dailynews.com