Niles mayor backs down on safety forces minimum manning

July 23, 2016 at 12:06a.m.

NILES

Under fire from safety forces, members of the city’s fiscal commission and angry residents, Mayor Thomas Scarnecchia announced Friday he is withdrawing “after careful consideration” his proposal to eliminate minimum manning in the safety forces from the city’s Financial Recovery Plan.

Minimum-manning clauses in the city’s labor contracts require four police officers and six firefighters per shift. Acting Police Chief Jay Holland and Fire Chief Dave Danielson said they feared for the safety of their departments if those numbers were to be reduced. Danielson warned he would have to close the fire substation that serves Eastwood Mall and the U.S. Route 422 strip.

The mayor had said it would be up to the discretion of the two chiefs to operate with less staffing, but Holland and Danielson said they had no intention of going below current levels.

During Wednesday’s council meeting, police, firefighters and the general public strongly and at times emotionally criticized the proposal coming so soon after the assassinations of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge. A split council would approve only a first reading of the plan by the narrowest of margins, 4-3, and the mayor concluded that council might not be willing to take it any further.

“In all honesty, I don’t think they would have passed it, so it’s out of the recovery plan,” Scarnecchia told The Vindicator. “The purpose that I put it in was to curb overtime in the departments.”

According to the city’s state-appointed financial supervisors, total overtime expenses for the police and fire departments already have exceeded $100,000 this year. The two departments amassed a similar amount for the same period in 2015.

“At no time did I ever want to make Niles unsafe,” Scarnecchia said. “I’m pro police and fire.”

Council President Robert Marino, who had criticized the amendment during Thursday’s meeting of the Financial Planning and Supervision Commission, said he was pleased with the mayor’s decision. Marino and Scarnecchia sit on the commission, which oversees Niles’ recovery from fiscal emergency.

“It’s the right thing to do for the safety of the residents and police officers,” Marino said.

The mayor’s other amendment to the plan is a requirement for employee contributions to the health care premiums, which are currently paid in full by the city – a proposal that council appears to support. Health care contributions are among the city’s demands in current labor negotiations with unions representing the safety forces.

The mayor is expected to resubmit his amended plan without minimum manning when council next meets Aug. 17.