Several officers came to listen to the city council members discuss the 2012 budget, but none spoke.
By Nancy Peckenham
The Newburgh city council has less than two weeks before it adopts a 2012 budget that will layoff as many as eight police officers unless some last minute negotiations can spare them. That was the message on Monday night at city council, where acting city manager Richard Herbek said that the city also would cut the jobs of three code enforcers and one employee in the city comptroller’s office and replace two full-time parking enforcement positions with four part-time positions. The reductions, he said, are necessary to keep the budget within the state-mandated tax cap.
Incoming mayor-elect Judy Kennedy spoke to the eight or so police officers at the meeting, reminding them that tax payers are the ones who really pay their wages. “I implore PBA to come to the table and give a little so that we can save these other police officers,” Kennedy said. Other members of the council echoed her sentiment, including Christine Bello, who criticized the last-minute deal the city brokered last year with the fire department that guarantees no layoffs in the department. “We have crime every day but we don’t have fires every day,” Bello said. “We are losing police officers and shooting ourselves in the foot.”
PBA attorney Paul Weber later said the police union is willing to negotiate but that the city keeps changing the rules. He said that city officials told him earlier this year that $1.1 million needed to be cut from the police budget and he argues that money saved from retirements and transfers could total more than that. “They are trying to force pay cuts down our throats,” Weber said in a phone interview on Tuesday, noting that officers have not had a pay raise in three years.
Acting city manager Herbek denies that the city is changing the rules, but points out that other actions have impacted its bottom line. He said that the city is looking for $900,000 in savings in the police budget, whether it is from concessions or layoffs, and that the city has offered options. “We need to work this out with the union and it can’t be done alone,” Herbek said on Tuesday. “They need to step up to the plate.”
Mayor Nicholas Valentine said that the city has until the end of the year to finalize a deal with the police union and, like Herbek, he promised to keep the door open for future talks.
Loading...
