Mayor: Safety forces likely will face layoffs

It will be hard not to touch the safety forces when making layoffs, the mayor said.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Mayor George M. McKelvey agrees wholeheartedly with the police union that any layoffs will hurt.
Laying off police officers and firefighters will be the last resort, he said.
But it's unrealistic to think those departments can be spared, the mayor said Thursday. The city is projecting a 2002 deficit estimated at about $1.7 million. That means about 40 layoffs.
It will be hard not to touch the safety forces when he submits a proposed list of layoffs to city council, McKelvey said. That probably will happen sometime next month.
Mayor's reasoning
About 80 percent of the city's budget involves salaries and benefits. About 75 percent of that spending is tied up in the police and fire departments, McKelvey said. That makes safety forces almost impossible to avoid in layoffs, he said.
The city could close entire administrative departments -- which isn't practical -- and still not fill the budget gap, the mayor said.
McKelvey said he understands that the police union, which spoke to council Wednesday, is standing up for its newest members who face a layoff.
The irony, he said, is that he wants those officers whose jobs are in jeopardy to stay, too. McKelvey said his administration hired those officers and doesn't want to let them go.
Fiscal emergency
Nonetheless, the state will come in next year and declare a fiscal emergency if the city doesn't take the needed steps to stay out of a deficit, he said.
If that happens, the state will make even more drastic employee cuts than city leaders are discussing now, McKelvey said.
The city can't ignore the realities of the slumping national, regional and local economies, he said. City services must be in balance with the revenue available to provide them, he said.
The mayor said he is willing to suffer the short-term pain of layoffs now for the promise of a balanced budget later, hopefully starting in 2004.
rgsmith@vindy.com