Posted on 07/09/2009 9:29:21 PM PDT by greatdefender
DAYTON — City Manager Rashad Young said that if the city’s police union agreed to accept a proposed wage freeze and four furlough days, 11 officers slated for layoff on Aug. 3 would keep their jobs.
“They will not be laid off,” Young said.
Young and Police Chief Richard Biehl held a press conference Wednesday, July 8, to announce the layoff plans. Earlier in the day, the 11 officers and union leadership learned of the cuts.
The officers, who have a little less than a year of experience, were trained in the Dayton Police Academy and are “pretty devastated” by the news, said Randy Beane, president of the Dayton Fraternal Order of Police.
“We’re at desperately low numbers already, and the city leaders chose to ignore the safety of the people,” Beane said after exiting the meeting.
Beane said he would discuss Young’s statement with his membership and the decision on possible acceptance would be up to the membership. He said that the union doesn’t believe four furlough days are necessary economically and that the union was more open to discussing the wage freeze.
“We’re quite perplexed,” Beane said. “We’re kind of concerned about the ethics involved in doing this.”
Beane said the department has 396 officers before the pending layoffs. That number was already 99 officers short of the department’s recent standard of about 495 officers, he said.
Statewide, Ohio municipalities have one police officer for every 495 residents, according to a 2007 FBI report, the most recent available. Dayton ranks third among the state’s cities with 50,000 or more residents with the lowest officer-to-resident ratio, at one officer for every 398 residents. Only Cleveland (one officer for each 265 residents) and Cincinnati (one officer for each 300 residents) fared better than Dayton, according to the FBI numbers.
Young said the city is facing a roughly $6 million shortfall for the remainder of the year. He estimated that the job reductions in the Police Department will save the city approximately $773,000 a year. Which equals 1.5 percent reduction in the Police Department’s 2009 budget.
“Unfortunately, we are joining a growing list of other communities that have been forced to consider police personnel reductions as part of their overall cost-cutting moves, including Cincinnati, Columbus, Toledo and the Montgomery, Greene and Hamilton County Sheriff offices,” Young said.
While the FOP has stated that its membership is already 99 officers few than in recent years, Biehl said “we need to forget about the past.”
“I think that folks need to let go of that history. This is a different time, a different environment,” Biehl said.
In June, it was announced that continually falling revenues had left the city with a mid-year budget deficit of at least $4 million.
Lagging income tax revenue of $2.7 million and local government fund losses of $2.1 million, among other declining revenue streams, forced city leaders to take another hard look at the budget.
“These are very young, aggressive officers,” Beane said. “I have a hard time getting out of my mind the picture of city officials eating on the public dollar at catered events while they’re laying off police officers.”
Beane went as far as to say the union could explore a possible recalling of Mayor Rhine McLin.
“We believe the city is mismanaged,” Beane said.
What other departments are being cut? What other staff reductions is the city making?
Has the mayor taken a pay cut? Have the mayor’s staff taken cuts?
If they aren’t cutting across the board, this sounds like another “let us raise your taxes or we’ll take away the police and fire departments,” scare tactic.
The union members did the same thing in Cleveland a few years ago when the City had trouble with their budget. The city wanted the police to give up some benefits in order to save 200 ‘brother officers’. They refused. The union wouldn’t even give up the yearly uniform benefit of $1,200. per year per officer. This would have allowed the city to keep 150 of the 200 laid off police.
No Dice. not 1 nickle of give back.
Yobama will now send them money and save the day.
Wait a minute, did not Biden say that they had saved (the new White House buzzword that has replaced ‘created’), hundreds if not thousands of teacher, law enforcement, etc. jobs? /sarcasm
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