With the city’s next budget cycle set to begin in a few months, Mayor Scott Foster doesn’t see any way out of preparing to lay off police officers and firefighters.

“We are heading into the next year’s budget discussions $3 million in the hole,” said Foster.

“We knew last year that this next year was going to be rough so it shouldn’t really surprise anyone that we are going to have to lay people off.”

When asked how sure he is that some of the city’s public safety workers will lose their jobs, the mayor answered that it is “probable”.

“When you are working with a budget of $32 million and you start out $3 in the hole, that’s eight percent of your budget,” said Foster.

 “We are already doing everything we can to reduce costs this year. We have spent eight percent less this year than we spent at the same time the previous year.”

In addition, former Finance Director Mary Lou Piper’s position has not been filled since she resigned several months ago, an engineering position was not filled last year and there are already more than five vacancies at the police department, due to officers being called out for duty in the military reserve.

“We cut to the bare bones last year,” said Foster. “And the recession hasn’t gotten better as quickly as I hoped that it would.”

According to Foster, there were approximately 150 new homes built in Hendersonville last year.

“When one year you build 500, the next year you build 350 and now you are down to 150, it has a ripple effect,” he explained.

“Fewer building materials are being purchased locally, which impacts sales tax, anticipated property tax revenue begins to drop, it really starts a chain reaction.”

Fire Chief Jamie Steele says he is prepared to do what he has to do but hopes it doesn’t come to it.

“After what the city went through last year balancing the budget, I don’t think anyone in my department thought that we were totally out of the woods coming up on this year,” said Steele. “We were in dire straits last year, and we are basically in dire straits again this year. The difference is that this upcoming year the idea of layoffs won’t be a surprise. Last year we were totally and completely shocked when the talks of layoffs came around. This upcoming year we will do everything in our power not to lay anyone off, but we are already cut to the bare bones and if we can’t cut anymore then it might come to that.”

During the 2009-2010 budget process, Steele offered to give up his bonuses, not hire a deputy chief and do other things that would reduce the bottom line in his budget. This year even given those sacrifices it may not be enough.

“Whatever happens, we are going to try our best to keep services as close as we can to what we have been providing,” he explained.

“Last year we had a contingency plan where we looked at reducing hours and some other things. This upcoming budget year, I will just get that plan out, dust it off and see what we can do to make it work before we start laying off. But it’s like the mayor said, ‘don’t be surprised if in the end we have to cut some positions.’”

The fire department is currently down by three positions, however, two of them will be filled by the end of the month.

“We have to be sure we stay within the federal guidelines for the grants we received,” said Steele.

We have pushed it and pushed it as far as we could but we sure don’t want to lose that grant money.”

The grant funding provides partial funding for firefighters’ salaries that is gradually reduced each year until the funding ceases.

While the budget discussions won’t get started for 60-90 days, Steele is already looking at designing a plan to take in with him.

“We will do what we have to do,” he said. “But we are going to try everything else first.

“We already use a lot of older equipment and we do a lot of patching. We will do more of that if it reduces our expenses and prevents layoffs. But in the end we won’t be surprised if we have to lay people off.”