Youngstown continues to buy out its workers

YOUNGSTOWN —The Youngstown Board of Control is expected today to approve paying $219,447.58 in severance packages to 16 recently retired city workers.

The workers are among 55 who took an early-retirement incentive from the cash-strapped city.

The city offered the buyout to certain city workers between February 2007 and this past March. The plan was save money over the long-term by eliminating some positions and filling other posts with workers at a reduced salary.

Finance Director David Bozanich estimates the city could save between $3 million and $6.5 million over a 10-year period.

But the buyouts are causing immediate stress to the city’s general fund, estimated to have a deficit of more than $3 million by the end of this year and about $6 million by Dec. 31, 2009, if cuts aren’t made.

The city spent more than $2 million to buy two years of state Public Employees Retirement System time for employees who retired early under this program this year and in 2007.

It is also spending about $900,000 for severance packages for those same employees, Bozanich said.

After today, there should only be about two or three retirees who haven’t received their severance pay.

The severance pay is largely accumulated sick time that workers haven’t used.

Read more in Thursday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com