ESCONDIDO -- In putting together its budget priorities for the next fiscal year, the City Council has been reading the writing on the walls. And a considerable chunk of Escondido's final spending plan will revolve around ways to erase it.

For the fiscal year that begins July 1, the council appears poised to spend as much as $1.4 million to combat graffiti, not only on its walls but also on street signs, sidewalks, utility boxes and just about every other stationary object in the city.

Councilman Sam Abed, who has repeatedly pushed for upping the ante on what the city spends to paint over and prevent graffiti, said $1 million-plus is just the start of what he believes needs to be done to improve the city's appearance, adding that some areas of the city have gotten so overrun with vandalism they become an excuse not to visit or invest in Escondido.

"They are an embarrassment to our civility, an embarrassment to our pride and an embarrassment to our city," said Abed, who pushed for setting aside the $1 million since a budget surplus was announced in February. "We cannot sit back and say, 'Let's put a Band-Aid on this.' "

Most of the money will come from $1 million that a council majority agreed to set aside last week for graffiti-eradication efforts. The newly created war chest comes out of a $4.5 million surplus from the city's 2004-05 budget.

The remainder of the money, roughly $400,000 will come out of the city's proposed $87.7 million operating budget, and be used to pay for employee overtime, paint and equipment needed to cover up taggings and other vandalism. The allocation amounts to a $221,000 increase over what the city is spending this fiscal year on eradication efforts, according to officials and budget documents.

City officials caution, however, that budgeted expenses for graffiti removal are spread across different departments and that, while money may be available, actual expenses are only counted as services are provided or supplies bought.

An extra push

City Manager Clay Phillips said the increased spending included in the 2006-07 budget proposal is a reflection of the priority that Abed and other council members have made of eradicating what they say is a growing scourge in the community.

The additional dollars are planned to pay for new efforts to block out graffiti around Escondido, including:

- about $56,000 to pay for four part-time employees to help with graffiti removal;

- $120,000 for employee overtime for graffiti removal and other code enforcement;

- roughly $45,000 for an additional truck, complete with pressure washers and spray-paint guns.

If approved in June as part of the final budget, the extra money would continue a push that the council began in February, when it voted to spend an additional $260,000 this fiscal year on beautification efforts, including graffiti eradication.

In part, that money was used to help decrease response times on complaints registered with the city's graffiti hotline and to pay overtime costs for city maintenance workers to paint over unsightly tags and other graffiti, officials said.

Already, the council's efforts have begun to make a difference, and at a critical time, according to Rich O'Donnell, Escondido's director of maintenance and operations.

O'Donnell said that complaints to the city's hotline have skyrocketed of late.

In January 2004, the hotline fielded 118 calls.This January, 612 separate incidents were reported, more than a 400 percent increase in just two years.

That number has continued to climb. In March, after introducing a new hotline number dedicated solely to graffiti complaints, the city received 760 complaints. And the tally of calls for April was on track to meet or exceed that amount as of the middle of last week, according to city figures.

O'Donnell estimates that, aside from responding to hotline tips, maintenance crews cover up an equal number of taggings they spot just cruising city streets.

And the addition of a truck and extra personnel to round out his staff of two full-time and one-part-time employees should give the city added speed in responding to hotline complaints.

"We would hope that would cut our response time from 24 to 48 hours down to 12," O'Donnell said.

More than paint

At this point, fighting graffiti is mostly a labor-intensive effort. But Phillips said that if Escondido is to be successful in eradicating such vandalism, it will need more than just people with paintbrushes in hand.

That is where the $1 million would best come in, according to Phillips, who said using the one-time windfall to pay for more employees or other ongoing costs would not be fiscally prudent.

"In the long run, if we just keep painting over (graffiti), we're just going to run around painting things," Phillips said.

In June, before the council approves its final budget, a city task force dealing with graffiti and code enforcement issues is expected to present recommendations on ways to combat vandalism, which could include increased prosecution efforts and other methods.

The money could also go toward such one-time purchases as surveillance equipment, and community programs or campaigns aimed at bringing in help from neighborhoods, Phillips said.

"If we just throw money at (the problem) and hire new people, that money is going to go really quickly," Phillips said.

But Abed said that the financial heft thrown into stopping such vandalism is essential to completely eradicating graffiti, "otherwise we will not be able to maintain our quality of life."

"Quality of life cannot always be measured in sales tax revenue," he added.

Mayor Lori Pfeiler, who voted against allocating the $1 million before the city's task force came back with its recommendations, said she understands the scope of the problem, but wants to see the city make the best use of the limited resources it has to combat vandals.

"You can't just throw money at it," Pfeiler said. "That is not going to solve the problem."

Any successful eradication effort will depend on getting the community involved and letting "neighborhoods impose standards upon themselves," Pfeiler said. "That comes neighborhood to neighborhood. It's not the city coming in with an iron fist and saying, 'This is not going to happen.' Because we can't police every house."

Contact staff writer David Fried at (760) 740-5416 or dfried@nctimes.com.