Girard lawmakers seek legislation to cut three city posts

The mayor isn't releasing details of his fiscal recovery plan yet.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
GIRARD -- A majority of city council members want to eliminate three positions in Mayor James Melfi's administration.
Urged by Kathleen O'Connell Sauline, D-2nd, four lawmakers have asked for legislation removing the positions of service director, city engineer and recreation director.
The jobs were created by Melfi after he took office in January 2000.
Salaries: Mark Zuppo, a former councilman, is being paid $15,000 annually as part-time recreation director. David Hall, part-time engineer, receives $12,000. They do not receive benefits.
Jerry Lambert, another former councilman, is being paid $33,000 a year as service director. The city had a safety-service director until Melfi split the duties, appointing Frank Rich as director of safety and human resources.
Supporting Sauline are Brian Kren, D-3rd; Thomas Grumley, D-4th; and Joseph Manente, at-large.
The city recently fell into fiscal emergency. A state commission has been named to oversee finances. Under the emergency, declared by the state auditor's office, the mayor is required to come up with a fiscal recovery plan.
Some lawmakers have been urging him to share his plan with them, but Melfi has resisted.
"The mayor is to submit the plan. It's my plan; it's not their plan," he said. "I will not give bits and pieces to anyone, including council."
To release the plan in parts, he said, would be "unprofessional and insensitive" because it deals with the economic livelihood of city workers.
Speculation: There have been rumors that as part of Melfi's plan to get the city out debt, there may be layoffs in the union ranks or urging employees not to take pay raises already negotiated for next year.
Sauline said that if there are going to be layoffs, there should be reductions in the administrative staff.
Although she doesn't know what will be in Melfi's plan, Sauline said taxpayers don't want cuts in safety forces.
She contends the mayor should have had a plan in place in time to have averted fiscal emergency. Sauline noted that Sam Lamancusa had predicted a $750,000 deficit for this year when he was city auditor.
Lambert says he serves at the pleasure of the mayor. Hall said that even if he loses his job, the city is still required to have a registered engineer on staff.
Even when applying for state Issue 2 funds to pay for city improvement projects, Hall pointed out, the application must be signed by an engineer or it won't be accepted.
Zuppo, calling council's move a knee-jerk reaction, declined to comment when asked if Grumley is playing politics because he and Grumley are candidates for seats on the school board.
Not political: Grumley said his decision to support Sauline's attempts to cut administrative staff is not based on politics.
Grumley said he agrees with Sauline's initiative because Melfi has not provided council with information about his cost-reduction plan.
"I don't want to see any city jobs cut. We're looking for more dialogue from the administration.
"Hopefully, he has a fiscal plan that doesn't eliminate any jobs, but we don't know that," he said.
In arguing against the four lawmakers, Melfi says the money that the three administrators have saved the city more than offsets their salaries.
He noted that the engineer is instrumental in zoning issues and will play more of a role when the city begins its inspections of rental properties. "Am I to assume these four people [on council] are not for zoning?" the mayor asked.