Unless the city’s four unions make major concessions this week,
another round of pink slips could go out as early as Friday,
according to city and union officials.
Unless the city’s four unions make major concessions this week, another round of pink slips could go out as early as Friday, according to city and union officials.
Up to 33 employees, ranging from police officers to some of Gilroy’s top brass, could receive layoff notices Friday that would go into effect June 30 – the end of the fiscal year and five months after 48 full-time workers lost their jobs in a previous round of layoffs. A second round of personnel cuts would trim the city down to 194 employees – a 29 percent reduction in six months – and would mean City Hall would no longer be one of Gilroy’s five largest employers.
Earlier this month, the city council, which has a $37.3 million budget next year, directed unions to slash 16 percent of personnel costs to help balance an expected $4.7 million deficit. To this end city department heads have prepared lists of the first employees to go. The bargaining blocs have generally shirked at the idea of additional layoffs and the council will meet behind closed doors Wednesday to discuss union counter-proposals before deciding on pink slips, which must go out by May 31 to oblige the city’s 30-day notice policy.
“I cannot tell you today there will be no other considerations after Wednesday because I don’t know if the unions will bring any other proposals, but it must be said that we have a certain timeline to reach those decisions,” Mayor Al Pinheiro said Monday.
Tina Acree, business agent for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 101 – Gilroy’s largest union with 100 members ranging from city engineers to emergency dispatchers – said she planned on re-submitting the union’s furlough, or workdays-without-pay, proposal rather than cutting 13 union members to save about $1 million, she said.
“(AFSCME) members want to submit the idea of furlough days again, which we’ve already done, and (the council) told us to go up the river,” Acree said. Acree added that layoff notices probably would not go out Friday – two days after the council’s closed session – because “(Human Resources Director LeeAnn McPhillips) is not going to be working 48 hours straight to get employees their layoff notices two weeks early.”
Representatives for the Gilroy Managers’ Association – which represents 23 employees – the Gilroy Police Officers’ Association and Gilroy Fire Local 2805 declined to detail their counter-proposals. The fire union, which represents 33 employees, is currently in a regularly scheduled negotiation session. However, POA representative Mitch Madruga, who represents 59 sworn officers, said he had been working on a counter-proposal “all Monday morning” for the council’s consideration. He recommended dipping into the reserve fund or cutting operational costs rather than personnel.
“There’s still a lot of fat that can be trimmed away before the city needs to start cutting into the center of the steak,” Madruga said.
Last November, before the council voted to layoff four non-sworn full-time police employees, the POA voted to forego volunteer specialty assignments instead of losing their colleagues. This time around, Madruga said the union wants the council to re-consider cutting mounted and canine units along with other auxiliary assignments that require expensive training instead of laying off officers that the city’s reserve fund could pay for.
The six sworn officers in Gilroy’s gang unit worry that the department will lose its grip on the streets if the council lays off 10 sworn officers. In e-mails to her staff, Police Chief Denise Turner has indicated she would dissolve Gilroy’s Anti-Crime Team in response to layoffs and redeploy officers to keep street patrol levels up.
While Gilroy has typically relied on its robust reserve fund to resolve financial hiccups, council members have said they are unwilling to further drain the fund after a $4.7 million hit last year and an expected $8.4 million reduction this year. The fund will hold about $13.6 million come July 1 – enough to cover about 36 percent of next year’s budgeted expenses – but that does not take into account the expected $4.7 million deficit city officials are trying to patch up.
“If we just wait until the day the storm comes in and don’t prepare for it, we’re not going to be able to take care of the things we need to,” Pinheiro said. “This is a give and take – this is not some dictatorship.”
