Long Beach is preparing to slash more than 260 jobs and eliminate another 200-plus vacant positions as officials scramble to close a $58 million budget deficit — with proposed cuts hitting public safety, libraries and youth programs.

City Manager Tom Modica’s proposed $4 billion 2026-27 budget, unveiled Thursday, would eliminate about 4% of the city’s nearly 6,000 employees. The cuts represent the first proposed general fund layoffs in almost six years, after soaring labor costs, legal payouts, weaker tax revenue and the loss of federal grants squeezed city finances.

Public safety would also take a hit.

Officials want to shut down Fire Engine 14, saving $3.8 million after finding it responds to the fewest fire calls in the city and that 87% of its calls are for medical emergencies.

Police would eliminate 17 vacant patrol officer positions, cut 18 investigator jobs and trim $2.68 million in overtime, though sworn officers and firefighters who lose positions would be reassigned elsewhere.

The Health Department, which lost $11 million in outside funding, would eliminate 79 positions, including eight in the city’s homelessness bureau, reducing weekend outreach, medical shuttle service, workforce programs and one of two mobile homeless outreach teams.

The city would also cut motel voucher shelter rooms from 40 to 15 and provide rapid rehousing assistance to 45 fewer households, while keeping all municipal shelter beds open.

Residents would also feel the cuts. Five libraries would reduce hours to five days a week, while teen programs at Chavez Park, summer swim lessons at Jordan and Millikan high schools and the after-school WRAP program would be eliminated.

Hourly parking rates would also rise from $2 to $3.

Even with the reductions, the budget preserves funding for a 12-officer High Crime Focus Team, expands the city’s real-time crime center, permanently staffs Fire Engine 17, upgrades the police crime lab and buys a $6.5 million police helicopter using forfeited assets and a law enforcement grant.

Long Beach has already tapped $27 million in reserves, leaving $33.6 million.

Mayor Rex Richardson wants to restore 70 positions, protect some police, fire, youth and homelessness programs and add health jobs using revenue from Measure ER, a revised Port of Long Beach fire services agreement and savings from skipping a November general election.

The proposal heads to the City Council for public hearings before a final vote expected in late September.

Despite another projected $27.3 million deficit next year, Richardson said Long Beach remains on track for its first structural budget surplus by 2028.