YOUNGSTOWN 46 to leave city payroll

The incentive is creating staffing problems in city hall -- and that's before planned layoffs even start.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- City hall will resemble a bakery Friday, considering all the cake that will be around to recognize nearly four dozen outgoing workers.
Most of the 46 workers who recently took the city's $10,000 incentive leave the payroll Friday.
Amid the office celebrations, however, comes the hand wringing over how to provide services despite losing those who do the work.
The fire department barely can staff its trucks. All three workers who help residents through the housing repair program are leaving. The engineering department is losing two of its three engineers.
And planned layoffs haven't even started.
"It's a serious problem," said Carmen Conglose Jr., deputy director of public works.
The city offered the incentive in May as a way to trim payroll and reduce a projected $2.5 million deficit for 2002.
The city saves about $800,000 with the departures. The city now is mulling at least 40 layoffs, and maybe more, to cut the remaining $1.7 million projected deficit.
The voluntary departures are a big enough challenge.
Firefighting situation
The fire department is on the brink of shutting down trucks or stations periodically. Eight firefighters are leaving. Six other firefighters who retired earlier this year weren't replaced.
"We're day-by-day wondering if we've got enough people," said Fire Chief John J. O'Neill Jr.
Two inspectors and an arson investigator already were reassigned to trucks. The moves leave three fire inspectors and one arson investigator for the city.
Mayor George M. McKelvey made it clear last week that it will be almost impossible to spare the fire or police departments from layoffs, too. Safety forces make up about three-quarters of the city payroll, he said.
The city must reduce the work force commensurate with the loss of income tax revenue to stay out of state fiscal watch or emergency, he said.
O'Neill isn't complaining. Instead, the department will come up with a rotation for the closures of trucks or stations. Slower response times won't be centered on just one section of town if closures are rotated, he said.
Losing two-thirds of staff
It's hard to operate an engineering department without engineers, too.
Conglose had three engineers, but two took the incentive and left. Eventually, one must be replaced, he said.
Meantime, Conglose said he will do what he must to get as much done as he can. He will borrow a housing and demolition inspector with an engineering background to oversee a West Side drainage project. Of course, that means one fewer housing inspector on the street.
Projects, such as annual sidewalk replacement, simply will take longer without more engineers, he said.
The Community Development Agency had three people whose job was to guide residents through the housing repair program process. All three are leaving.
That means assigning new job duties and changing how the whole office operates, said Jay Williams, CDA director.
CDA operates solely on federal money. Leaving the jobs empty wouldn't save the city any general fund money, so eventually two will be filled, he said.
The city, however, hopes workers who now are paid out of the general fund will transfer to the open jobs. Their old jobs would be left open, which would reduce the need for two layoffs, Williams said.
Not eligible
Another notable worker -- Anthony M. Simmons, a housing inspector -- also applied for the incentive.
He won't be collecting, however, city officials say; he is being held in jail indefinitely on an armed robbery charge.
Last month, a U.S. magistrate ordered Simmons and two other men bound over to a federal grand jury in the $900,000 robbery of a Loomis Fargo van. Police traced a truck used in the robbery to Simmons' home, where he was arrested and the money found. Police say Simmons has admitted his role in the robbery.
The city has suspended Simmons without pay pending the outcome of the case, said Law Director John McNally IV.
rgsmith@vindy.com