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Liberty voters face 2 levy renewals
Liberty
Township residents will vote Tuesday on police and fire renewal levies that each make up nearly a quarter of the departments’ operating budgets.
Both are 5-year, 2-mill renewal levies that would bring in $463,680 per year for each department. The fire levy first was instituted in 2007 and the police levy in 1992. According to the Trumbull County Auditor’s office, each levy will cost Liberty residents $63 per year for a house valued at $100,000.
But both ballot measures come on the heels of controversial wage increases for the fire and police departments at a time when the township and the police department had deficits of $200,000 and $250,000, respectively.
Township trustees in December 2010 asked all departments for zero wage increases and for all employees to pay 10 percent toward their health-care contributions for three years.
Office workers and the street departments accepted the wage freezes and health-care increase. But police and fire went to an arbitrator for their contracts and gained what was for them a favorable ruling.
In the end, fire captains received a 5 percent wage increase their first year and 3 percent for the second and third years. Firefighters received 3 percent increases each year, while policemen received salary increases of 1.25 percent, 1.5 percent and 2 percent in three years.
The wage increases in the fire department contract, the township projects, will cost Liberty approximately $69,000 this year. It saved only $11,000 in insurance benefits in 2011.
Likewise, the 2011 wage increases for the police department cost the township approximately $50,000, and the insurance change saved $23,000.
Also tied to the contracts were the pay raises to chiefs, Fire Chief Michael Durkin and Police Chief Richard Tisone. Durkin’s pay grew about 4 percent to $70,824. Tisone’s pay grew about 5 percent to $83,844.
“They botched the contract negotiations,” said Jack Simon, a former trustee for 12 years who is running again for the position. “They didn’t even bother to negotiate.”
He believed the trustees should have given more ground initially to the unions rather than giving a hard stance on zero wage increases and an increase in health-care contributions.
The unions were “going to go to conciliation, and they were going to get something,” Simon said. “And they did.”
When this all happened last spring, the township was still running a $200,000 deficit, which it has since erased.
And despite the raises, the overall township budget will see savings by not replacing retiring ranking police officers. One sergeant’s retirement this year saved $100,000 in total costs. Pat Ungaro, the township administrator, said the next captain that retires also will not be replaced.
“Crime is down, and they are doing it with less people,” Ungaro said.
Fiscal officer John Fusco said the police department was running a $250,000 deficit in 2010. In order to keep the police department operating, the township lent $180,000 from the fire department and $74,000 from the general fund to the police.
“This was done to save our police department,” Fusco said.
Both chiefs contend they have put in place cost- cutting measures.
Police Chief Tisone, for example, has taken confiscated cars and SUVs used for trafficking drugs and reused them as police vehicles.
Tisone also hopes to create a volunteer corps of policemen to ride along with the 15 full-time officers. It would increase the safety of the officers and build a network of already-trained policemen from which to hire at a cheaper rate.
The fire department has relied on grants such as a recently obtained $100,000 grant for new air tanks that will last 10 years. Inside the department, he says he keeps the thermostat consistently at 70 degrees all year and turns the lights on only when needed.
“The trustees would come in and laugh at us because we’d be sitting in the dark,” Durkin said.