Monroe’s budget proposes more cuts

Published 9:49 pm Monday, October 25, 2010

MONROE — The city’s latest attempt at balancing its 2011 budget includes another layoff, reduced city services and eliminating some money for the police department.

City officials will present the proposed $9.6 million budget at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the City Council meeting, at City Hall, 806 W. Main St.

The revised budget proposal includes more than $500,000 in cuts to the general fund. The cuts were made after the council asked for a leaner budget during a special meeting Oct. 9.

Monroe laid off four people Oct. 14 and a community service officer will be let go Dec. 31. A vacant police officer position will be unfilled as well, as the city struggles to keep itself out of the red next year.

The city has been trying to balance the budget since early summer and started talks with the bargaining units of the Teamsters Union and the Monroe Police Officers Guild in an attempt to save 10 jobs.

The police department would be most affected by the cuts, losing overtime and training for next year.

“It’s not a good situation,” city administrator Gene Brazel said.

The new proposal includes one layoff in administration and reducing work hours of other city employees. The employee with his job on the line has been notified but has not received a formal notice.

The city is still open to talks and the unions can still have an influence on the budget, Brazel said.

The unions claim they did everything they could to save jobs and offer a better solution to fix the city’s budget woes. The Teamsters 763 union believed they went beyond what the city asked on their contract proposal, representative Scott Sullivan said.

The city asked the union for concessions to the employees’ contract. These were to not give employees a cost of living increase, nor to pay an increase in medical costs; it also sought to suspend the retirement fund match. These things were beyond what the union was willing to do, Sullivan said. The Teamsters were against any layoffs.

“You can’t solve this by workforce. You need to find a source of revenue,” Sullivan said.

The Teamsters have four contracts representing 64 city employees: 34 from public works and parks employees; 21 office employees; six sergeants from the police department; and three supervisors.

The bargaining units offered several contract proposals where they agreed to reduce COLA contributions from 2 percent to 1 percent and transfer four members from public works and parks to another medical insurance plan.

In exchange, the units asked for a one-year extension in their contract and no lay offs.

“The consensus is we are confused and frustrated that our concessions were not accepted,” said Theresa Davis, a member of the bargaining unit. “How can any savings not be considered in these hard times?”

The city would have saved $30,882.03 for the COLA reduction and $48,777.84 a year with the transfer to the Washington Teamsters Welfare Trust plan which already covers the rest of union members, the union claimed.

Their proposal was rejected by the council Oct. 5.

The council demurred because members believed they could not commit to the future demands and expectations, Mayor Robert Zimmerman said.

“There were too many strings attached,” he said.

The union and the city had differences in ideology, he said.

The request made by the unions would only move the problem to next year, Councilman Tom Williams said.

The city will have a balanced budget but ways to do it are limited, Williams said, because the council does not believe residents would approve a tax increase.

“We have two options: concessions or lay people off,” he said.

Alejandro Dominguez: 425-339-3422; adominguez@heraldnet.com.