Although area media reported Monday that the city of Lincoln is planning to lay off 200 employees, Mayor Spencer Short said Tuesday the number of layoffs will be significantly lower.

“We only have 230 employees total,” Short said. “That’s how crazy this whole thing is.”

Although Short would not say how many jobs will be cut, he said that information will be available Friday.

“We want to be able to tell our employees first,” Short said.

(The News Messenger will put the number of layoffs and which jobs are cut online Friday at www.lincolnnews-messenger.com.)

The layoffs are part of an effort to cut a little more than $1 million from the budget.

It won’t just be the lower-level employees whose positions are at risk.

“We are looking at all levels, including management,” Short said. “We have to.”

All of the General Funded departments will experience cuts to some degree, according to city of Lincoln officials.

“While it is not possible at this time to state that no public safety personnel will be laid off, rest assured that city management is doing everything within their power to minimize the impact to public safety and other service areas that could affect the citizens of our community,” according to a press release Monday by Jill Thompson, the city of Lincoln’s spokeswoman.

“We don’t know what that looks like at the moment,” Thompson added Wednesday, about the police and fire departments’ cuts, “but the police makes up 47 percent of the General Fund and the fire department is 20 percent.”

Today, City Manager Jim Estep is scheduled to brief City Council in closed session on results of the budget meetings with employee-labor groups. Although the City Council’s closed session will determine how the budget will be balanced, including how many layoffs are necessary, Thompson said that final action will be taken at the City Council meeting set for Tuesday night.

Last week’s talks with six employee groups was to find concessions that could be made by the groups in lieu of layoffs, according to Thompson.

The six employee groups are the Police and Fire Midmanagement/Supervisory Group, the City Midmanagement/Confidential Group, the Lincoln Police Officers Association, the Lincoln Fire Suppression Officers Association, the Professional Administrative Group and the Classified Group.

“The purpose (of holding the closed-session meeting) is that, by then, we should know the status of the group meetings,” Estep said last Friday. “The point will be to get their feedback. So far, the meetings have gone well and I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to save a lot of jobs.”

Unfortunately, if nothing changes, layoffs will still be necessary, Estep said last Friday.

After today’s closed-session meeting with City Council, Estep will have advised the council on where the cuts should come from, pending the talks with employee groups and possibly receiving additional direction from the council, Thompson said.

The ongoing situation has not been easy for city employees wondering about job security.

“My department, the Parks and Buildings Department, is solely general funded,” city employee Scott Boynton said last week. “I’m unsure right now about what will happen. We’re hoping for the best.”

Mayor Spencer Short said he hopes City Council can keep as many jobs as possible.

“We have some great employees who are likely to become casualties. We’ve got no possibility for a bailout,” Short said. “We’re on our own. It’s just surviving right now…making sure we get through the next couple of years and maintaining the high level of service to the community.”

As the Legislature battles to balance California’s budget shortfall, Short said he expects Lincoln to take a financial hit on redevelopment fees.

Short said the state’s budget crisis is an example of the need to act now, however hard that may be, to prevent having an even bigger crisis later, a sentiment that was the consensus between City Council, Estep and the nine department heads at the first budget-restructuring meeting in November.

The cuts are an effort to balance the city’s budget, which is currently experiencing a $1- million deficit in the general fund and $350,000 from the development fund.

“It’s tough, said Lincoln resident Bill Cook. “They’re going to have to trim someplace. They should trim a little from everywhere, maybe leaving police and fire alone.”

Not all residents, however, have the same outlook.

“As far as I’m concerned, they ought to keep on cutting them,” said Jerry Fackrell, a local small-business owner. “They should never have built that new City Hall. They should have expanded the old one. We need parking and they could have made a lot there. Why aren’t they thinking about the people who have businesses here? I think they should have maybe sought out some better advice.”

– Brandon Darnell can be reached at brandond@goldcountrymedia.com.