Budget Briefing Includes Grim Snapshot Of Potential Cuts

Catherine Lucey just got a copy of the city presentation with some of the budget cut scenarios and it's pretty grim. In the wake of a $1 billion budget hole over five years, these scenarios were prepared by the departments to show the impact of 10, 20, or 30 percent cuts.

Nutter stressed that these are only scenarios -- no action has been taken on next year's budget.

"No decisions have been made with regard to any of the proposals that you see," he said to the group of City Council members and top administrators gathered for the briefing.

That said, here are a few snapshots from the report:

In the police department, a 10 percent reduction would mean losing 929 sworn officers through layoffs and attrition, a 20 percent cut means a loss of 1,765 sworn officers and a 30 percent cut means losing 2,598 sworn officers.

For the Free Library, a 10 percent cut would force the closing of 10 branches, 20 percent means closing 23 libraries and a 30 percent cut would close 30 branches.