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Mayor seeks to cut 27 of rank off YPD
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Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams
Williams plans to replace lost ranking officers with patrol officers.
YOUNGSTOWN — City council will consider a proposal Wednesday to reduce the number of ranking police officers from 66 to 39 through attrition.
No time frame for full implementation of the proposal has been made because it isn’t known how many officers plan to leave the department and when, said Mayor Jay Williams, sponsor of the legislation.
The plan is to replace each departing ranking officer with a patrol officer, Williams said. But there is no guarantee.
The ordinance to be considered Wednesday states: “As funding permits, additional patrol officers and part-time patrol officers can be hired with the savings realized.”
Capt. Kenneth Centorame, president of the ranking officers’ union, said he was “surprised” to find out about “a major transfer of the police department” from a reporter with The Vindicator — and not from the city administration.
He was also skeptical about the mayor’s statements that each officer leaving the department would be replaced.
“This is more of a secret than the Manhattan Project,” Centorame said in reference to the secret project during World War II to develop an atomic bomb.
“The mayor has not discussed this with me or any member of the bargaining unit.”
The average base pay of a patrol officer is $51,321 a year and the average base pay of a ranking officer is $63,788 annually.
The city administration is asking the union that represents patrol officers to reduce the entry-level salary, which is about $37,000 annually, Williams said.
Depending on the outcome of discussions to reduce the entry-level salary, the city may be able to hire even more patrol officers when ranking officers leave the department, he said.
“By reducing management we’ll have more officers on the street,” Williams said. “We’re not looking to reduce the number of police officers. We’re looking to maintain the level of staffing. ... The intention is to maintain the same number at the Youngstown Police Department, but have more patrol officers.”
No patrol officer positions would be cut in this plan, he said.
Of the 27 proposed cuts through attrition, 24 would be detective sergeants.
“It’s a sad thing that there’s no chance for a future for new hires,” Centorame said. “I hope council gives us a chance to say why this is bad. Without detective sergeants, who’ll do the investigations of thefts through murders? The workload won’t decrease.”
In its current contract, the union representing ranking officers agreed that the city could reduce its ranks through attrition if revenues that fund the department fell 6.5 percent below the proceeding year.
“There is no indication that’s the case,” Centorame said. “It seems like we’re the union being targeted. I don’t know if it’s retribution for not giving back our pay raise.”
City officials are looking at ways to run departments more efficiently and aren’t targeting the police ranking officers, Williams said.
A study commissioned by the city shows that the ratio of ranking officers to patrol officers in Youngstown is 1 to 1.8. The study of eight other cities — Parma, Canton, Lorain, Springfield, Hamilton, Kettering, Elyria and Lakewood — shows ratios there to be 1 ranking officer for every 3.7 patrol officers.
If Youngstown’s proposal is fully implemented, the city’s ratio would be 1 to 3.5.
City administrators said earlier this year that 50 jobs needed to be cut, or the financial equivalent of $3.9 million in salary and benefits, to balance this year’s budget.
If nothing was done the city’s deficit would be about $6 million by the end of next year.
About 20 firefighters accepted a retirement/resignation incentive in June that reduced the city’s general fund budget by about $750,000.
The city has cut about $1 million from its budget through the sale of property and other cuts.