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City control board to OK severance for 16 retirees
Police and fire union officials want an early-retirement incentive offered to them.
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 to 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 be only 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.
When employees stop working for the city, they are entitled to money equal to 35 percent of the unused sick time they accumulate annually.
That sick time, collected over the entire employment of city workers, is paid at the per-hour salary amount they received when retiring, typically much higher for long-time employees.
Most of the retirees were with the city for 25 to 30 years.
The city needs to cut about $3.9 million from its general fund by July 1 to offset projected deficits. That amount is equivalent to about 60 full-time employees.
The first employees to lose their jobs if there are layoffs are part-timers and seasonal workers.
City administrators continue to meet with employee union representatives to avoid or reduce layoffs.
Police and fire union leaders have proposed the city offer an early-retirement incentives to its members, Mayor Jay Williams said. It is one suggestion being considered, he said.
But if not enough money is saved through that proposal, layoffs would occur, Williams said.
Safety forces weren’t eligible to participate in the city’s recent buyout program offered only to those workers under the PERS retirement system. Police and fire departments have different retirement systems, Williams said.
The city asked the unions to consider pay cuts and increases to their health care premiums, Williams said. The city’s unions have not agreed to that proposal, he said.
skolnick@vindy.com