Leisure World Security’s budget has been cut for 2012. Administrator Dan Schaeffer confirmed the budget cut in a recent telephone interview with the Sun.
“Rest assured, it is minimal,” Schaeffer said.
“The budgetary cutbacks represent 2 percent of the 2012 security budget,” Schaeffer said.
Leisure World Security serves roughly one-third the population of Seal Beach. The retirement community straddles two City Council districts.
The security budget isn’t the only one touched by budget cuts. All Leisure World departments had their 2012 budgets reduced.
“All departments (including Security) of the Golden Rain Foundation made budgetary cutbacks for the 2012 fiscal year,” Schaeffer wrote in Nov. 29 statement he e-mailed to the Sun.
“The Security Department will include enforcement, special enforcement after specific community events, staff reduction in some training exercises and the elimination of one four-hour patrol shift Monday through Friday (late afternoon and evening),” Schaeffer wrote. “The safety of the community will not be compromised with these cutbacks.”
While Schaeffer said all Leisure World departments had their budgets cut, he did not specify by how much.
He said the Golden Rain Foundation Board of Directors would not want him to provide that information.
However, he did say that the budget cuts were less than 10 percent.
Tom Green, president of Mutual 9, said Jaime Guerrero, head of Leisure World Security, had indicated that he could provide the same level of security with the budget cuts.
“They (the Golden Rain Foundation) responded to residents who wanted to reduce costs,” Green said.
Green also said the Security, Bus and Transportation committee would revisit the security budget issue.
Jaime Guerrero, head of Leisure World Security, described the effect the security budget cuts would have on his department during the Nov. 3 meeting of the Leisure World’s Presidents’ Council.
The Presidents’ Council is an advisory board made up of Leisure World Mutual presidents.
According to the minutes of that meeting, which were published in the Nov. 24 issue of the Golden Rain News, Guerrero said that the 4-8 p.m. patrol shift would be eliminated. Jaime Guerrero also told the Presidents’ Council that training, radar enforcement and special enforcement would be effected by the budget cuts.
Presidents’ Council minutes are “action minutes,” which do not provide a word-for-word transcript of the meeting. Action minutes merely summarize what was said and done.
Green said the Golden Rain Foundation had done well in making a budget that was reasonable, yet satisfied the community’s needs.
