SAFETY FORCES City officials: Tax increase already used

Raises for top officials were linked to police contracts.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The city says pay raises and rising benefit costs have soaked up the revenue from last year's income tax increase dedicated to fire and police.
Safety force workers don't believe it.
City officials have been making their case recently for police wage freezes before a state fact-finder and in public. Substantial layoffs loom without a freeze because there is no money to pay for raises, city officials say.
Mayor George M. McKelvey has pleaded publicly with police officers to forgo raises. He has pledged in return to keep the force intact.
Police union officials question the city's handling of the money. They contend the city is underestimating revenue and question the need for layoffs.
"We just don't feel they're getting what they voted for," Capt. Ken Centorame, president of the Youngstown Police Ranking Officers Organization, a labor union, said of taxpayers.
City figures show the police and fire departments, combined, account for 63 percent of annual spending. That includes all city spending except for water and sewer, which are self-supporting.
The city can't increase the proportion spent on safety forces without further cutting other services that already get bare-bones funding, said Finance Director David Bozanich.
"It's an issue of availability of resources," he said.
City figures show that income taxes dedicated to police and fire cover about a third of the spending on those departments.
Income tax revenue from the city's general fund supplements the rest.
The general fund can't supplement police and fire any more without deep cuts the city can't handle, Bozanich said.
General fund departments -- such as streets -- have 43 fewer workers than in 2002. Those jobs cuts are a split between buyouts and layoffs still in effect.
That cutback just maintains the current balance between safety and other spending, he said. And the city still finished last year with a $900,000 deficit.
Meanwhile, police and fire departments had all their members who were laid off in 2002 recalled, he said.
Money for any raises awarded by a fact-finder or arbitrator would have to come from savings generated by new police and fire layoffs, Bozanich said.
The half-percent income tax dedicated to police and fire that went into effect last year gave Youngstown the state's highest city income tax rate at 2.75 percent. Euclid has a 2.85 percent rate, 2.38 percent of which goes to the city; schools get the rest.
Youngstown's newest income tax raised $2.8 million more last year for police and $2.2 million more for firefighters.
But scheduled pay raises and fast-rising benefit costs in those departments ate up the new revenue, he said.
Bozanich said the new police and fire income tax revenue was applied to the increasing costs. The new revenue essentially served only to reduce the general fund's supplement of those departments, he said.
Centorame, the ranking officer's union president, said police union officials question the city's handling of revenue.
Contract talks
The city is negotiating with the patrol officers union at the moment, but the contract with ranking officers also has expired. Both unions usually get the same contract. Patrolman Kevin Bokesch, president of the other union, the Youngstown Police Association, could not be reached to comment.
The unions also contend the city is underestimating its revenue, he said. The city isn't budgeting enough income tax revenue that will come from several projects, he said. Among them, he pointed to the new county office building, reopening Federal Street and the arena project.
Bozanich said the city makes conservative revenue estimates and plans for about 2 percent growth, which usually is realized.
Centorame said the unions are confident the collective bargaining process will cut through the accounting and establish that there is enough money for raises.
Police union members also object to raises the mayor, finance director and law director received this year, amounting to 7 percent.
Patrol officers are seeking annual 4.5 percent wage increases plus 60 cents more per hour, which the city says equals about 6 percent.
The almost $7,000 raise the mayor received, bringing him to $99,399 this year, is hard to justify while asking police to take wage freezes, Centorame said.
But raises for top officials are linked to police contracts.
In 2001, contracts gave police captains and assistant fire chiefs about $3,200 more than their chiefs. So late that year, city council granted the police and fire chiefs raises to push them about $1,300 ahead of their closest underlings.
What's required
City hierarchy puts the finance and law directors above the chiefs. So, the two directors got raises that put them a few hundred dollars ahead of the chiefs.
Finally, the city charter says the finance and law directors are to make 80 percent of the mayor's salary. So, the mayor's salary was made 20 percent more than the directors', resulting in his paycheck of nearly $100,000 this year.
Bozanich said management is contributing 10 percent of the monthly health care premium the city pays plus making new copayments on doctor visits and prescriptions. Meanwhile, police are resisting making any contributions.
Even withholding management raises wouldn't make a difference when it comes to paying or laying off police and firefighters, Bozanich said.
"You're comparing small numbers to relatively large numbers," he said. "You have to go after the big numbers."
rgsmith@vindy.com