Cut salaries soon or face layoffs, Williams warns unions in letter

By David Skolnick | March 20, 2009 at 12:09a.m.

Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams

Youngstown firefighters aren’t being asked to take the 10-percent pay cut.

YOUNGSTOWN — In a letter to most unionized city employees, Mayor Jay Williams wrote that labor group leaders need to immediately contact the law director to discuss his proposal to cut salaries by 10 percent to avoid layoffs.

“We need to make key decisions within the next 30 days so please contact the law department without delay,” Williams wrote.

“Failure to act timely in achieving necessary savings will unfortunately leave little other choice than to implement a reduction in personnel, an undesirable outcome that no one wishes to occur.”

The letter was sent to members of six unions that are paid through the city’s general fund, which is facing a projected $3.39 million deficit this year.

[Unionized employees in the city’s water and wastewater departments are paid through separate funds to run those departments.]

One union paid with general fund money noticeably absent from the letter is the International Association of Firefighters, which represents about 140 in the fire department.

That’s because the firefighters union agreed to an early-retirement program last year that saves the city about $1.5 million over a two-year period, 2009 and 2010.

“Due to the considerable savings achieved, firefighter furloughs is not an issue being discussed,” Williams told The Vindicator Thursday. “This is not to say, however, that we may not collaborate with them to try and find additional savings.”

Under Williams’ plan, affected city employees would work four fewer hours a week, which would cut their wages 10 percent, to avoid layoffs.

This would be in effect for 10 to 12 months.

“If the financial condition of the city has stabilized, employee labor groups will return to the normal work schedule,” Williams wrote. “If deficit conditions persist, we will convene the employee labor groups in an effort to negotiate a mutual course of action.”

Without the voluntary salary and work-week reduction, the city would lay off up to 60 employees with about half of them being the least senior police officers.

Union officials say Williams is failing to take in all factors — including federal economic stimulus money and a series of cost-cutting measures proposed by the labor groups — before calling for the 10-percent cut.

Edward Colon, president of the 116-member police patrol officers union, called eliminating 30 officers is “insane” and “outrageous. You put the public in harm’s way by layoff of police officers.”

The administration’s goal is to not lay off any of the city’s 850 employees, Williams wrote.

“Yet there comes a point when the fate of an employee labor group rests with in their own hands,” he wrote.

Some “labor groups remain in disbelief, denial and/or blame” over the “economic calamity” facing the city, the region, the state and the nation, Williams wrote.

“They would rather leave the tough decisions to someone else,” he wrote.

Because more than 80 percent of the general fund’s costs go to salaries and benefits, that’s where the biggest cut must come from, Williams wrote.

There have been savings in other areas, but “it is not productive to spend an inordinate amount of effort debating reductions that will yield only marginal results,” he wrote.

Williams reduced his $105,000 annual salary by 10 percent through a combination of a pay cut and givebacks on some of his benefits.

skolnick@vindy.com