Schnirman sworn in as Long Beach city manager

Jack Schnirman took over the job of Long Beach city manager yesterday, vowing to immediately work toward addressing the city's fiscal crisis by getting status reports on departmental operations, controlling spending and declaring a fiscal emergency.

"We're going to institute tighter spending controls as we move forward, both immediately as well as in the process leading up to the April budget," Schnirman said.

Officially declaring a fiscal emergency as of today gives him more authority to tighten spending, Schnirman said.

"Simply put, just because money is budgeted doesn't mean that it will be approved to be spent," he said.

Long Beach owes $48.3 million in general obligation debt and recently had its debt downgraded from A1 to Baa3 -- the lowest investment grade -- by Moody's Investors Service.

Schnirman, 34, was sworn in Tuesday before a crowd of city staff and residents gathered at city hall.

"Together, we're going to make Long Beach proud and set a new standard for good government," Schnirman said after the ceremony.

The new Democratic city council majority chose Schnirman for his experience as chief deputy supervisor in Brookhaven Town from 2006 to 2008, which at the time faced similar financial issues.

Once Schnirman and the council diagnose the extent of the fiscal crisis, they will develop an emergency financial plan to present to Moody's by the end of January, incumbent Councilman Mike Fagen said.

"We want to establish immediate working contact with the rating agencies and show them that we're working on a corrective action plan," Schnirman said.

But first, Schnirman said, their job is to get as much information as they can.

"We don't yet know what we'll find," he said. "We hope that as we really examine the numbers, that we don't find any worse information, but we may," he said.