With the city of Lincoln facing a $1-million budget deficit, city officials are working with employee bargaining units to find ways to make budget cuts and avoid mass layoffs.

City Manager Jim Estep said on Monday he is meeting with all the city’s employee labor groups “to discuss options and come to a mutual agreement” that saves as many jobs as possible.

Estep said meetings to discuss specific plans with the bargaining units will begin on Dec. 29. He hopes to present those plans to the City Council sometime in early January.

Estep said city officials have found ways to cut $400,000 from the general fund that are non-employee related. These cuts include a reduction in materials and supplies, not filling vacant positions, reducing overtime in every department and cutting back janitorial services in city buildings from five days a week to three days a week.

This leaves officials with $600,000 left to cut from the general fund budget.

“At this point, we’re still going to have lay people off regardless,” Estep said. “I think we’re going to get together with each of these groups to discuss ways to minimize job losses.”

While no specific plans were laid out yet, Estep said, cuts being negotiated with the various employee bargaining units could include pay cuts, two-day-a-month furloughs for city workers and a restructuring of employee benefits.

Estep said that nothing definite has been decided because employees work under contract with the city and these contracts have to be renegotiated before any cost-saving changes can be made. Estep said meetings to discuss specific plans with employee bargaining units will begin on Dec. 29.

Like most cities in the state, Lincoln is facing a structural deficit, meaning that the city’s expenses exceed what it’s bringing in, Estep said.

“It gets to a point where it gets worse and worse, and you can’t recover,” Estep said. “We need to act quickly.”

Lincoln Mayor Spencer Short echoed Estep in saying that the city needs to act quickly.

“If we don’t do something to get our budget back in balance this year it will limit what we can do for the next four or five years,” Short said Monday.

Short noted that it is a stated goal of the City Council to limit layoffs of city employees.

“Unfortunately, layoffs are still an option to get our budget back in balance,” Short said.

Estep said at this point every employee bargaining unit except one, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 39 classified division, have voted to negotiate with the city to find solutions to the budget crisis. The classified division covers public Works employees like maintenance workers and drivers in the Solid Waste department.

Patrick Clark, business agent for Local 39, said even though the classified division decided not to negotiate changes to their contract the unit is still willing to talk with the city to find ways to save money.

“We’re going to work closely with the city to mitigate layoffs to the greatest extent possible,” Clark said.

Clark said that the classified division decided not to negotiate with the city because many of them work in departments that are not included in the general fund budget.

Many of Local 39’s classified employees, like Solid Waste workers, are paid through special enterprise funds. These funds are self sustaining through items such as user fees in the case of Solid Waste employees and are solvent at this point, Clark said.

Because they are not paid through the general fund, these employees feel less threatened by the possibility of layoffs, Clark said.

Clark also represents Local 39’s certificated employees division, part of the general fund budget, which has voted to negotiate with the city.

Clark said that while most bargaining units have agreed to negotiate with the city to solve the financial problems, he is not sure what direction the negotiations will go in.

“If push comes to shove, I don’t really have a sense of how this is going to go,” Clark said. “With most people, like most cities, facing financial difficulties, I don’t know many people can take a 10-percent pay cut to save someone else’s job. People just can’t afford to be that generous right now.”

Clark said that his understanding of the city’s position is that city management is trying to make proportional cuts to every department.

This bodes worse for the police and fire departments that account for more than half of the general fund budget, Clark said.

Lincoln Police Chief Brian Vizzusi said he does not want to lose any of his employees and is urging the city to make cuts to the police department only as a last resort.

“One of the primary duties city governments have is to provide adequate public safety services,” Vizzusi said. “When times get tough, we have to remember those primary duties.”

Vizzusi said he is examining ways to make cuts from his department and minimize layoffs.

One option Vizzusi is looking at is to consolidate and share services with neighboring cities such as Rocklin.

Vizzusi said he is talking to nearby cities with similar problems to find ways that the cities can find ways to help each other through these difficult times.

Lincoln Police Officers Association President Dave Krause said his unit has agreed to talk with the city and find ways to minimize the damage done by the economic crisis.

Krause said that while there is no plan on the table yet, police department employees are willing to try to work something out that is beneficial to both the city and the Police Officers Association.

“We want to try to minimize layoff as much as we can while keeping in mind we have to live too,” Krause said.

Short said a primary goal of City Council is to keep the city running efficiently and continue offering major services like public safety at the level the public expects. He said this means the city is sitting down with the bargaining units and “opening the books” to look honestly at what can be done to minimize layoffs.

“It’s one of those situations where we try to prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” Short said.