It's back to the future in Minneapolis, where Mayor R.T. Rybak again is proposing cuts in the city's police and firefighter ranks.

Rybak's budget for next year would lop 32 positions from the Fire Department and 24 police officers. The plan is for that to happen by attrition, but there could be layoffs if not enough people leave by the end of 2011, according to the city's budget office.

It's the second straight year of cuts in each department and the second such cycle in Rybak's nine years as mayor. In 2003, midyear reductions in state aid prompted him to slash the city's already adopted budget. Back then, the city laid off 42 firefighters, although most were eventually rehired as the department took on additional duties. The budgeted number of police dropped by 63 positions, and it took the department four years to regain its pre-cut staffing, according to budget office figures.

"We've been through this before," said Lt. John Delmonico, president of the union representing police. He predicted that callers will wait longer for police at a crime in progress and that more lower-priority matters won't be investigated.

"You can talk technology all you want ... but at the end of the day, it's about people. When someone calls 911, they hope someone shows up," Delmonico said.

The police and fire departments are the two largest dollar consumers of the city's general fund, which is largely supported by property taxes and state aid. But despite cuts in their projected budget growth, Rybak aide Peter Wagenius argued that they're faring as well as or better than other departments.

General fund spending on the Fire Department has risen 20 percent since Rybak's first budget in 2003, about average among departments. Police spending has gone up 39 percent, or higher than average. However, although the police share of the general fund pie has risen slightly, there's been a slight dip in the fire share.

Rybak's budget proposal comes as he's trying to shift more city spending into street repairs, but that depends on the dubious scenario of Minneapolis getting all of the state aid that the law allocates -- that is, assuming there are no further cuts by the next governor or Legislature.

Rybak repeatedly has said that the city's potholes are the price of building back police ranks and other public safety spending, including 911 staffing and criminal prosecutions, in the years after the 2003 state aid cut. The public works share of the general fund, largely for street repairs, has dropped from 15 percent in 2003 to 12.7 percent in Rybak's latest proposal.

The proposed police and fire staffing cuts come as the city's crime rate has been relatively stable this year, compared with 2009, except for a big jump in homicides. Violent crime is close to even with last year's rate to date, while it's down 15.3 percent since 2008. Property crime is up almost 8 percent but still down nearly 11 percent from two years ago.

Winter took toll on roads

Meanwhile, the effect of last winter's weather on a city street system already weakened by years of reduced investment prompted a chorus of complaints about potholes last spring.

City officials turned out extra pothole crews in response, but Rybak sought to recover some of the lost ground by proposing a $9 million annual increase in the amount spent on paving arterial and residential streets. Most of the dollars would go to milling off deteriorating old paving and then replacing it, but most of the miles would get the much less intensive work of sealing cracks and sealcoating the surface with oil and then crushed rock. That comes despite many of the city's residential streets being at or beyond the age when public works officials say they need more thorough renovation.

Police officials were not commenting about the impact of a cut in sworn ranks. The department was authorized 892 uniformed spots as recently as 2009. It had 886 sworn people late last month, but Rybak's budget proposes that drop to 862 by the end of next year.

On the fire side, Rybak proposes cutting 32 people from a department where firefighters already are unhappy that many pumper engines often operate with crews of three rather than the preferred four. One likely response would be to not staff one of the department's two heavy rescue rigs, manning it with firefighters from other rigs when needed. That means fewer people would get to a potentially serious fire scene initially, fire officials said. But that's politically easier than closing a fire station.

The City Council would also likely be forced to revisit staffing minimums it agreed to several years ago.

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438