Police Layoffs

[FOTD]

Dunno, I'm not voting for LaFortune II.

What's your current line on the election?

Actually, any of these next mayors may leave office after 4 years making Bill look good in comparison.

Sticking with my previous predic... Mayor Dew. Perky diverts the win margin from TA. Heard just the opposite from the local Dim spoonies.

Toss up.

[Ibanez]

... or the $3,000,000 new email system she had to have because the City wasn't using Outlook when she got here.

And, where's the media in this town?  Why don't they ever look into government expenses?  Where is the story about how the current mayor has sucked this town dry and the crazy projects the money went to?  Oh, yea...  politics.

3 million? pancakes?!?

I work somewhere locally that has 6200 Exchange mailboxes and am in the process of putting together the budget for a new server farm to run it. Total cost of the hardware? Just under $60k

The software for each client license and the Exchange software will be about $460k

So where the hell did they spend 3 million on a new email solution?

[Wrinkle]

I still haven't gotten over Public Works spending $5 million in 1997 for a new software billing system, then having to spend another $5 million in 1999 because it wasn't Y2K-compliant.

[Wilbur]

Isn't it interesting the Mayor didn't offer up anyone out of her own office.  Way to lead by example, Mayor!

A city of 400,000 now has to rely on OHP for police services.  How embarrassing is that?

[Breadburner]

Isn't it interesting the Mayor didn't offer up anyone out of her own office.  Way to lead by example, Mayor!

A city of 400,000 now has to rely on OHP for police services.  How embarrassing is that?

It's ridiculous......I dont understand how they could not find city employees to lay off....Some of them sure stand around enough.....

[Wilbur]

It's ridiculous......I dont understand how they could not find city employees to lay off....Some of them sure stand around enough.....

In these tough times, does the Mayor really need an Education Czar and a Veterans Affairs Czar?  We never had them before.

[RecycleMichael]

Before the layoffs, the Mayor asked the police union for a couple of concessions.

One was to stop some take-home vehicles, but only unmarked cars going outside the city limits. The other was to ask officers for five days notice when they want to use a comp day as a vacation instead of 24 hours notice.

The police union refused, even though these two steps would have been enough to reduce the layoffs.

Why would the union not agree to these? Why would they choose to lose officers?

Are the guys with unmarked police cars living outside the city so powerful in the union that other officers must lose their jobs so they can keep their benefit?

What possible benefit is it to the rest of us to have unmarked cars leaving the city?

[Conan71]

Isn't it interesting the Mayor didn't offer up anyone out of her own office.  Way to lead by example, Mayor!

A city of 400,000 now has to rely on OHP for police services.  How embarrassing is that?

With only two months left until most of those folks are hunting for new work, it would have been little more than a token statement, but I think it would have at least given the image that EVERY department is cutting where possible.  It will be up to the next mayor to decide if they want such a big cabinet or not.  I'd say it'd be a popular position to trim it down some.

[RecycleMichael]

The Mayor's office cut their budget by $28,000...about twice the percentage cut that the police department took this week.

[MH2010]

I love how people in the city administration throw this out there like the union said, "No, F$#* those young guys. Lay them off!!!!" That is a total misrepresentation of what happened. Considering that negotiating in public is an unfair labor practice the FOP will not be making public comments about the negotiating process but I have no problem with it.  The city administration emailed the FOP at 1:30pm on Monday and gave the ultimatum of officers giving up their take home cars (all of them) outside the city and to make it a requirement that you give  5 days notice before you take a comp day instead of 24 hours or they would lay off officers.  The mayor's people then said they needed an answer by 3:30pm.  The FOP stated they they needed more time to discuss this and wanted to know how much money the city was trying to save.  The city responded nevermind that, those are your options! You need to accept this by 3:30pm.  The FOP then responded that we couldn't even have a executive board meeting in 2 hours.  So the city went ahead and started the lay off process. This is typical from this administration.  

Earlier in the year, the FOP told them that the furlough days would cost the city more money in overtime then it would save and they did it anyway. Now the overtime is $500,000 over where the city thought it would be last year.

The chief then threw out this 1.1 million dollar or so number about how much take-home cars cost outside the city. This number is 10 times higher then the number they gave a year ago during arbitration. So either the cost of take-home cars increased by about 10 times in a year or someone is changing the numbers.

So needless to say, the FOP has alot skepticism about what the city administration says and always wants to check the numbers.

 

Before the layoffs, the Mayor asked the police union for a couple of concessions.

One was to stop some take-home vehicles, but only unmarked cars going outside the city limits. The other was to ask officers for five days notice when they want to use a comp day as a vacation instead of 24 hours notice.

The police union refused, even though these two steps would have been enough to reduce the layoffs.

Why would the union not agree to these? Why would they choose to lose officers?

Are the guys with unmarked police cars living outside the city so powerful in the union that other officers must lose their jobs so they can keep their benefit?

What possible benefit is it to the rest of us to have unmarked cars leaving the city?

[DowntownNow]

The Mayor's office cut their budget by $28,000...about twice the percentage cut that the police department took this week.

The cut to the Mayor's staff was not a result of a budget cut..it was the direct result of Amy Polanchek leaving to take a job under Taylor when she moves to the State.  Review the Mayor's budget cut proposal at the TW and the TW articles concerning these cuts.  The Mayor has repeatedly refused to cut any of her at-will staff or seek a sizeable reduction in their salaries to offset budget cuts.

[shadows]

No, I don't think they could do that legally.  Are you aware of other counties or municipalities where this has been done?  I've never heard of such a thing. 

On the FD they have their own little kingdom under the article Xl of the charter. Section 5.1 No chief, officer, or sworn member of the Fire Department shall take an active part for the election of officers of the city, except to vote and privately state a personal opinion.

Article lll, Mayor, "O", provide, administer, maintain, and operate all police, fire protection, civil defense, and emergency services and functions".  

Have you ever heard of Robert Peel's Privatized "Bobbies" that brought crime under control in London?  Without guns?

When a city does not have the money to support its bureaucracies then it is time to privatize.  I do not see in the charter where any "good faith" negotiation is required with public security employee's but there are statutes and codes that cover the actions of such employees when unionized.  The union picks the cities that they want to be compared with and it is the highest priced ones.

In present day negotiations it should be brought out that it was the employee of the city that violated their own agreement under section 5.1.
 
The judge got a nice appointment that increased his retirement when the question was brought up. We have a right to work law in Oklahoma, remember. It is time to amend all union/city contracts for survival.

The people voted overwhelming to amend the charter although state statutes only allow one subject to one ballot title there was sure a slew of them on the amend ballot including around 300 words where the statute only allows 200.      

[DowntownNow]

MH2010....are those arbitration transcripts a part of the public record and available for viewing?

[cannon_fodder]

MH2010:  though I have high expectations for the TPD and am often critical; I always appreciate your comments.


Per the take home cars:

As i understand it take home cars have several benefits:   1) it reduces wear on the vehicles to assign it to one officer, it is their car and treated better, 2) they can get to work quicker or respond nearly immediately in an emergency, and 3) a police car parked in a neighborhood will discourage crime and give confidence to the community.  In light of those benefits, a serious argument can be made that in the long run the money is well spent.

HOWEVER, taking police cars outside the city limits of Tulsa removes the entire benefit of #3 and significantly reduces the benefit of #2 while greatly increasing the cost to Tulsans and increasing the wear and tear on vehicles (whereby limited the benefits of #1).  Why not initiate a common-sense program that would pass the cost of take home cars on to officer who choose to live outside the city limits of Tulsa?  This would not only save the city money, but encourage a greater police presence in Tulsa - whereby increasing the number of police cars traversing and parking on our streets, creating a greater investment in Tulsa on the part of officers, a limited boost to real estate and commerce as each officer represents ~$70K in income, and increasing the cities ability to respond rapidly to emergencies.  If an Officer still chooses to live in Owasso, then they can pay mileage on the vehicle for the privilege of driving it back and forth (which might still make it an economical choice).

According to the IRS driving one mile in a car costs ~55 cents (probably more for a custom police car with a high perfromance engine).  If you live 25 miles away you are spending $27.50 per day in commuting costs.  Five days a week, 50 weeks a year . . . $8,750 per year.  If there are ten officers living outside of Tulsa doing this each year, the changes would pay the salary of one officer.

Not a major change, but I don't see how the negatives offset the benefits to the citizens of Tulsa.  I get why the police living outside of Tulsa wouldn't like it, but I don't think the change would be unreasonable.  Not a panacea for correcting the budget problem, but one example of items that should be considered.

[MH2010]

I don't know if the arbitration transcripts are public record.  I don't think they are but I will check.  I know the administration won't let us record negotiation meetings anymore because we caught them in a lie during the last arbitration so I don't think they would want any of that public.

I, personally, don't have a problem with officers that live outside the city paying a fee to driver their cars home. I live in the city. There is always the arguement that it was a benefit that was given to us instead of a pay increase. Which it was during the Lafortune  administration so we would be giving up a benefit.  We already pay a fee for driving the vehicles to off-duty jobs.  Especially, now in a economic downturn and if it would save the jobs of other officers.

I didn't see the email but I heard today that the city is not planning on replacing any of the officers that retire with laid off officers.  I know of one officer that is retiring at the end of this month and there is no plans to replace him with a soon to be laid off officer even thou the city would be saving money because the officer that is going to retire is on the top pay step and the new officer is one from the bottom.  I'm not saying they should replace them one for one but if 20 to 40 retire like is planned this year then I think they could hire back the few that can't be covered by the grant.

I am curious if this is actually true or not.