PITTSBURGH Major layoffs on way

More than 700 city workers will lose their jobs, including all of the city's crossing guards.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- With the city facing insolvency by year's end and state aid held up by an impasse in the Legislature, Mayor Tom Murphy said the first of 731 city workers -- nearly 17 percent of Pittsburgh's work force -- would be receiving pink slips Wednesday.
The cuts will affect nearly every department, from the police department, which will lose one of six city police zones and more than 100 officers, to the mayor's office, where nine people will be laid off.
"In arriving at these extremely unpleasant decisions, I have had to follow a simple guideline," said Murphy, who struggled to control his emotions. "Cut every function that we are not legally obliged to do or obliged by the necessity of basic public safety to do."
That means 265 employees in the Parks and Recreation Department will be let go, 26 of 32 swimming pools will close and all of the city's 19 recreation centers will shut their doors. A total of 814 positions are being eliminated if current vacancies that will not be filled are included.
Picketing
With Catholic schools set to open in less than three weeks, all 203 of the city's crossing guards were laid off Wednesday. Many of the guards and some parents picketed outside of a Pittsburgh hotel where Gov. Ed Rendell was meeting with legislators.
Rendell told the pickets that if legislators did not reconvene, he would call for a special session to address the situation in Pittsburgh and other state budget issues.
"We need to give both the council and the mayor the opportunity to make those choices for themselves and for all of you," Rendell said.
City leaders had sought approval in Harrisburg to levy two new taxes to help close the budget gap -- a 10 percent drink tax and a 0.5 percent payroll tax.
Murphy said he made the cuts only when it became clear that the Legislature would not reconvene and that the city would run out of money before the end of the year.
Yet a number of legislators remain opposed to tax increases and said Murphy did not need to fire so many workers, especially in the public safety sector.
"It is very difficult, over a period of a few months, to do away with 30 years of fiscal mismanagement," said State Rep. Jeff Habay, R-Allegheny. "This isn't a partisan issue, as some people have portrayed it. It's a fiscal responsibility issue."