Budget Ax Poised : Deputy Chief’s Post in Santa Ana May Be Cut

Santa Ana Police Chief Clyde L. Cronkhite said Tuesday that he has proposed cutting Deputy Chief Eugene B. Hansen’s position and two other management posts from the Police Department’s 1988-89 budget.

In addition to eliminating Hansen’s position, Cronkhite’s proposed budget would drop two of the department’s 17 lieutenants and four of about 50 sergeants.

The department’s budget this year is about $34 million, Cronkhite said. The proposed cuts are part of a 5% reduction that City Manager David N. Ream requested from all department heads in their preliminary budgets this year, Cronkhite said.

“My approach was to start cutting from the top first,” Cronkhite said. “I just spent a couple of years in private industry, and that’s the way organizations are fine-tuned.”

Hansen had overseen the department’s daily operations since 1979 and was interim police chief for six onths last year after Chief Raymond C. Davis retired in April. But he was dropped from a list of seven candidates to succeed Davis in October, and Ream chose Cronkhite, a retired Los Angeles deputy police chief.

Shortly after taking over, Cronkhite stripped Hansen of much of his power by having the department’s four captains report directly to him. Cronkhite said the move put him “in closer contact to operations in the department.”

Cronkhite said that working with Hansen has been beneficial, however.

“I thought it might be (awkward) at first, and we discussed it,” he said. “But he’s been of great assistance to me as I’ve been learning this department. It would be a detriment to me” to lose him.

Hansen was on vacation Tuesday and not available for comment.

Ream, contacted in Washington, where he is attending a National League of Cities conference, said he has had “preliminary discussions” with Cronkhite but has not yet seen his proposed budget for 1988-89. Cronkhite said the two will meet Monday to go over it.

The City Council usually makes the final budget determinations in June.

No lieutenants or sergeants were named on the dismissal list in the proposed budget, and those cuts could possibly be met through attrition, Cronkhite said.

“With him (Hansen) personally . . . we’ll work out something to his benefit, if they decide to cut out that position,” Cronkhite said. “He spent an important career in this department.”

Cronkhite said he did not know if Hansen had any plans to retire early, or take an extended vacation or leave. Sources within the department, however, said a farewell celebration is scheduled for Hansen at a Santa Ana restaurant on March 31.

If Ream and the council insist on sticking close to the 5% cuts requested in the preliminary budget, Cronkhite said he will be forced to eliminate some sworn and non-sworn officer positions as well, although he could not say at this point how many.

Such a move would anger some community activists and members of neighborhood groups who have been critical this year of the City Council’s refusal to grant Santa Ana police officers a substantial pay increase. The police officers’ association, which has been locked in a contract dispute with the city since last July, says that such an increase--about 12%--is necessary for the department to attract enough candidates to fill long-vacant positions.

The department now has about 14 vacancies, down from about 30 last year, Cronkhite said. “I’m going ahead and filling them as fast as we can get them into the academy,” he said. “I have had no direction to not fill those spots.”