Tuesday, November 17, 2009
YOUNGSTOWN — The cash-strapped city is offering another early-retirement/resignation deal to its ranking police officers as it works to cut its long-term expenses.
City administration officials estimate five ranking officers will accept the buyout. The buyout gives each officer a year’s base salary paid over five years beginning no later than April 30, 2010.
The ranking officers — sergeants, detective sergeants, detectives, lieutenants and captains — taking the buyouts won’t be replaced, said Law Director Iris Torres Guglucello and Deputy Finance Director Kyle Miasek.
The tentative last day those taking the buyouts would work is Jan. 8.
City council will consider the buyout proposal at its Wednesday meeting. The city’s board of control will finalize the deal a day later, Guglucello and Miasek said.
There are about 56 ranking officers, represented by the Youngstown Police Ranking Officers union, Guglucello said.
Seven ranking officers took the buyout when it was first offered in July. City administrators say those buyouts will save the city about $700,000 next year.
The annual base salaries of the ranking officers union range from $62,541.30 to $82,710.87.
Det. Sgt. Charles Guzzy, president of the ranking officers union, couldn’t be reached Monday by The Vindicator to comment on the buyout offer. But he signed the buyout agreement last week on behalf of the union.
The union’s contract with the city expires Nov. 30.
During contract negotiations, ranking officers union leaders asked about a second buyout option, Guglucello and Miasek said.
“After the first buyout [ended], they had a lot of members interested,” Miasek said.
The recent deaths of two captains also had officers thinking about a buyout, Guglucello and Miasek said.
“They want to enjoy their retirement,” Guglucello said of current ranking officers.
The buyout program is designed to reduce employee costs for a cash-strapped city that expects to finish this year with a deficit of about $1 million.
Ten firefighters are taking an early-retirement/resignation buyout by Monday’s deadline.
Those 10 fire department members, making as much as $71,030 in annual base pay, will be replaced by entry-level firefighters who’ll earn $24,000 in base pay in their first year.
The city will save about $315,000 next year through the firefighter buyouts.
Twenty city firefighters took the same buyout deal last year, which saved the city about $700,000 this year and is to save about the same amount in 2010.
The deal pays each person taking the offer a year’s base salary paid over five years.
Also Wednesday, city council will consider giving 22 acres to Brier Hill Slag at its Ohio Works Industrial Park off Division Street. The city purchased the 80-acre Brier Hill Slag site near Martin Luther King Boulevard earlier this year for $3.9 million, a key piece of property needed for a potential $970 million expansion project by V&M Star Steel.
As part of that purchase deal, the city agreed to relocate Brier Hill Slag, which employs 65, to another industrial park in Youngstown.
The board of control also needs to approve the Brier Hill Slag relocation. That should happen shortly.
skolnick@vindy.com