More city employees and officers laid off

By Ed Runyan

The mayor has proposed a change in management at Packard Music Hall that could save $300,000 per year.

WARREN — Sixteen more city employees, including five more police officers, were sent layoff notices Thursday afternoon.

Gary Cicero, human relations director, said the layoff notices were going out at the end of the work day.

In addition to the five police officers, the notices were sent to 11 employees in the city’s operations department, which works on areas such as roads and parks.

Cicero said the city will continue to negotiate with union representatives in hopes of receiving concessions from workers before the June 21 effective date of the layoffs so that the layoffs can be averted.

The layoffs are added to the furloughs of 20 police officers, 11 firefighters and eight other city employees that went into effect Jan. 1.

The latest round of layoffs are being made to offset a $1.6 million budget shortfall Auditor David Griffing announced in March.

City officials have said one of the ways they are hoping to cut personnel costs is to collect a co-pay from employees to cover part of the cost of their health insurance.

City workers currently do not pay a percentage of their health-care premium.

Meanwhile, Mayor Michael O’Brien said he has received assurance from City Councilman Vincent Flask that Flask will introduce legislation that would turn over the operation of Packard Music Hall on Mahoning Avenue Northwest to a private management company and save the approximately $300,000 each year the city pays to run it.

O’Brien said he asked Flask, chairman of the Music Hall and Amphitheater Committee, to sponsor the legislation so that the hall can be run more like the former Chevrolet Centre in Youngstown.

The city has always had the problem of being unable to risk government money to promote performances, so it has had to rely on whatever revenue it can get from renting the facility, O’Brien said.

A private entity can risk whatever amount of money it wants to, he said.

O’Brien said he believes hiring a management group would not violate the agreement between the city and the Packard family that requires the city to maintain the building or risk having its ownership revert back to the family.

The city never wanted to lose management control over the facility, in part to preserve the jobs of two city workers there, but the city’s financial problems have forced officials to look at every possible cost reduction, O’Brien said.

runyan@vindy.com