Police and fire services would diminish under a furlough plan designed to save the city money, the Los Angeles City Council's Budget and Finance Committee was told today as deliberations began on the city's proposed $7.04 billion budget.

Committee members plan to meet through May 12 to comb through a budget with a $530 million deficit, which Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hopes to close by renegotiating employee contracts, privatizing municipal facilities and increasing some fees paid by Angelenos. "We are living in an age of permanent fiscal crisis, which requires government to come to grips with the fact that we face structural problems that call for structural solutions," said Ben Ceja, the mayor's budget director.

The $7.04 billion budget is 1 percent smaller than the $7.11 billion budget approved for fiscal year 2008-09. To eliminate the $530 million shortfall, 2,800 city workers could be laid off or, as Villaraigosa has proposed, employees could work one unpaid hour a week, contribute an additional 2 percent to their retirement accounts and forgo scheduled pay raises. Those three ideas would preserve 2,580 positions, according to the mayor.

Police officers and firefighters are not in danger of layoffs, but a plan that would require them to take unpaid hours or days would lead to longer response times and an overall decline in service, police and fire representatives told the committee.

Requiring officers to take two furlough days would be the equivalent of losing 1,250 officers per deployment period, according to Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger.

"In order to achieve the $94 million cut that we are looking for the police department ... it would represent approximately two days per month or per deployment period," Paysinger said.The mayor's proposed budget asks civilian employees with the Los Angeles Police Department to take off one unpaid day a month. "It would result in 190 civilian employees missing every day. In addition, we wouldn't be able to hire any civilians ... it would make it extremely difficult to perform the support functions in the department," said Assistant Chief Sharon Papa.

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Douglas Barry said furloughs are not a realistic way to save money when firefighters and paramedics work daylong shifts. "We have approximately 3,700 sworn and about 450 civilian (employees). The problem with the furlough program is because our staff in the field have to be there 24 hours, to furlough them, you'd have to hire behind them and there would be no benefit," Barry said.

Pat McOsker, president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, said the union does not support the proposal, either. Furloughs mean "delayed responses, pure and simple - that means fires that get out of control, search and rescue efforts that are done too late, patients bleeding out, hearts not defibbed on time," McOsker said. Other proposals to eliminate the deficit include privatizing city parking lots - and possibly meters, the convention center and the Los Angeles Zoo - and generating some $4 million through increases in service fees paid by the public.

The budget calls for the stormwater pollution abatement fee to increase from $23 to $99 over a five-year period - an idea that already has met resistance from some City Council members. The increase must be approved by voters, and the mayor's office wants to the voting to take place through mail-in ballots, which would lower the threshold for approval from two-thirds to a simple majority.

For members of the Budget and Finance and Energy and Environment committees, the proposal stirred up recent memories of Measure B, a proposition on the March ballot that would have given the Department of Water and Power authority to install solar panels on the rooftops of city-owned buildings. Opponents complained the multibillion-dollar measure was rushed onto theballot. Measure B lost by 2,644 votes out of more than the 262,000 cast.

"We need to understand why we are being presented with this at this particular time. I haven't received one phone call from anybody on this. Nobody called me and asked me to support this," City Councilman Richard Alarcon said last week in a committee meeting. The council is scheduled to discuss the fee at City Hall tomorrow. Some city employees - though none who are police officers, firefighters or work for the DWP - may be eligible for early retirement, but the mayor's office said it is too early to speculate on the number.

The Coalition of L.A. City Unions, which represents 22,000 workers, says early retirement is the best option for employees. Allowing those employees to retire would only benefit the city financially if those positions remain vacant for a number of years, which could have a negative impact on municipal services.

The final budget must be adopted by June 12. The city's revenues have declined significantly. Officials expect that in the next year, property taxes will drop by $100 million, business taxes by$26 million, sales tax by $16 million and taxes from hotels by $10 million.

To save money, the city is also looking to combine the Commission for Children, Youth and Their Families, the Commission on the Status of Women and the Human Relations Commission. Consolidating those three commissions into the Department of Human Services would save the city $600,000 and eliminate eight positions, six of which now are filled.