By Paul Tuthill
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Springfield, MA – Public employees in Springfield, Massachusetts could be the latest to feel the impact as municipalities struggle to balance their budgets. As WAMC's Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill reports, the city's mayor says he is looking for concessions from the workforce.
Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno is asking the city's 15 hundred municipal employees for a one year wage freeze and to take a dozen unpaid furlough days in the next fiscal year in order to avoid lay offs and cuts in city services.
Sarno spoke at a city hall news conference Tuesday evening,that followed a closed door briefing for department heads and some union officials. He said the concessions being sought would close a five point four million dollar gap that remains in the proposed city budget which is expected to total more than 530 million dollars The city's new fiscal year begins July First.
Without the concessions, Sarno warned that as many as 120 lay offs could occur and city services would suffer. He said Springfield is facing a revenue crisis, as a result of the pending seven percent cut in local aid from the state.
State officials, including the Governor and House Speaker have proposed to help cities and towns offset the local aid cut, by forcing municipal employees to accept a larger share of the costs for healthcare. But that will do Springfield little good, as it workforce is already part of the state's health insurance plan, which is being used as the benchmark for co-pays and deductibles.
Springfield has cash reserves, a rainy day fund that totals 43 million dollars, but Sarno says he will drawn down no more than ten and half million from it for next year's budget.
The head of the Springfield City Hall finance team, the Chief Administration and Finance Officer, Lee Erdmann, warned that taping more of the reserve fund could spend it down to zero within three years.
Erdmann says the city's budget writers have cut as deeply as they can in the fiscal 2012 budget, which at one time had a deficit projected as high as 49 million dollars.
Springfield City Councilor Michael Fenton , who chairs the council's finance committee , said he hoped the city's unions would agree to the concessions.
Joseph Gentile, the president of the union that represents Springfield police officers, said he was disappointed the mayor had not sat down with the unions first, before making a public announcement.
The city's labor relations director William Mahoney said there are 9 different unions representing city employees.. Their contracts call for wage hikes of either 2 percent or 2 and ahalf percent beginning July first.
Despite a promised increase in state aid to local schools, the Springfield Public Schools face an 18 million dollar budget deficit, according to school department finance chief TJ Plante. He said a plan is being worked on to close the gap.