Tuesday, June 23, 2009
By Ed Runyan
The city of Warren still needs to cut $800,000 more from the 2009 budget.
WARREN — Human Resources Director Gary Cicero’s statement that the city’s six unions agreed last week to pay a part of their health care was “premature,” Safety Service Director Doug Franklin said Monday.
But Franklin added he believes such an agreement will be reached sometime this year.
“I’m very confident we will get something done,” said Franklin, who supervises employees in one of the last government bodies in the Mahoning Valley that do not pay a part of their health-care bill.
“It’s a Cadillac plan,” Franklin said of health-care benefits that cost Warren taxpayers around $13,669 per employee per year in 2008. “The private sector has made these adjustments some time ago, and we intend to do the same.”
The city has laid off 24 police officers, 11 firefighters and 20 other employees within the past six months to cope with shrinking revenue and rising costs, such as health care.
The city laid off four police officers and 11 other workers Sunday in the latest round of cuts and received $420,000 worth of concessions from firefighters last week.
Franklin said laying off four police officers saves about $88,000 in 2009 and laying off nine employees who maintain roads and parks and two Packard Music Hall employees saves another $300,000 in 2009.
That accounts for about $800,000 in savings in 2009, leaving the city in need of cutting another $800,000 from the budget, Franklin said Monday.
He said city officials will now turn their attention to other city workers, including management employees, to secure the last $800,000 in savings.
“We’re going to work with every bargaining unit and nonbargaining unit throughout the city,” Franklin said, adding that all employees in the city are on a 2009 wage freeze except the patrolman’s unit and dispatchers. In April, police officers agreed to a four-year wage freeze starting in 2010.
In January the union representing Warren’s firefighters took a 2009 wage freeze, followed by last week’s concessionary contract covering the last six months of 2009 that cuts wages and benefits, including about $30,000 in health- care costs.
The changes will have firefighters paying copays at doctor’s offices for the first time but not having a payroll deduction to pay part of their health-care premium.
Franklin said the city will need health-care payments from all city employees totaling $250,000 this year. That will help offset around $500,000 in increased health-care costs the city will pay in 2009.
On Friday, while discussing the concessions firefighters made, union president Marc Titus said other city employees must agree to similar givebacks, including members of the city administration and city council.
Titus said Franklin has agreed to give back some of his own pay, although Franklin was not prepared to talk publicly about his own give-back on Monday.
“We’ll be pressing for everybody to follow their [firefighters’] lead, starting with management,” Franklin said. “It [firefighter concessions] is what needed to happen” so that sufficient savings could be secured throughout the city, Franklin said.
runyan@vindy.com