BIRMINGHAM, Alabama –The latest plan to give merit raises for Birmingham police and fire department employees includes making across the board cuts for city departments – including police and fire.
The cuts, which range from 0.75 percent for smaller departments up to 1.67 percent for the largest departments.
The cuts would save $4.2 million, more than enough to pay for Mayor William Bell’s proposal to spend $2.5 million for merit raises to about 1,812 eligible employees, largely in the police and fire departments. The city has 4,208 total workers.
The council will meet this afternoon to mull details of the latest plan and prepare for an expected official vote Tuesday.
The raises were originally cut in a 5-4 council decision Thursday, but a late compromise was proposed by Bell and Council President Johnathan Austin after a backlash from police and firefighter representatives.
Under the proposal, the police department would be cut $1.5 million while the fire department is cut $939,631. Public works rounds off the largest departmental cuts at $795,271.
The compromise plan is similar to an earlier deficit reduction plan proposed by Councilwoman Valerie Abbott, but rejected by Bell’s office as too harmful to departments.
Abbott’s proposal was not designed to fund raises, but was an attempt to create a contingency fund to reduce any future budget shortfall. The current 2014 budget year will end in a deficit, and Abbott said her plan would have provided some insurance against that happening again in 2015.
Councilwoman Lashunda Scales had urged the council to retain the raises in the budget, calling the funding a matter of setting the right priorities to support essential personnel.
In an email to his colleagues, Councilman Jay Roberson restated his support for the merit raise, but again questioned the feasibility of making last minute department cuts so late in the budget process.
“The planning of this process should have begun months earlier and with thorough discussions with all departments during budget hearings,” Roberson wrote. “It would be impractical during this budget cycle now to attempt to adjust any department budgets not knowing “all” operational line items for these departments and needs. Extensive due diligence would be needed to review each department specifically and I am not sure if time will permit the council to do so.”
Abbott, who has disagreed with granting employee raises, told AL.com that she still has strong reservations.
“I haven’t made a decision on this, but I’m leaning toward what a bad decision it is,” she said.
Abbott said her rejected plan for cuts included restoring the money later in the budget year if revenue projects were correct. However, the latest plan from Austin and Bell to pay for raises, involves making cuts and spending the money with no chance of restoring the cash.
“My budget protection line item was to take the money till mid year to ensure the revenue projections were correct,” she said. “To me they had better not say that say that have run out of money and they need to take it out of fund balance because I’m not voting for it.”
In addition, Abbott had harsh words for police and fire union leaders who criticized the council’s budge decision to cut the raises, especially talk of a possible ‘blue flu’ or protests from police.
“The threats are pretty blatant – a clear case of big mouths and small brains,” she shot back in an email to colleagues. “I’m still looking for all the pork and “pet projects” one of them mentions…if we find them, let’s cut them out of the budget immediately.”
Abbott told AL.com, that the budget should be about making responsible decisions rather than making politically expedient ones.
“This is not a popularity contest. When you are put in public office, you are put in the position to make difficult decisions,” she said in an interview. “We’ve got this sort of knee jerk reaction and I’m just concerned that the wisdom is not here.”
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2014/06/not_yet_a_done_deal_birmingham.html