Badges - Cuts in Chicago
- From: CHK8093@xxxxxxx
- To: TOPCOPS-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, badges@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, COPS-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, POLICE-L@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:41:41 -0400 (EDT)
What vacancies? Just because it is budgeted, doesn't mean the jobs were
filled and the money spent on salaries. We are not 1,400 short, it is more
like 2,500 and more retirements are coming. It has been years since we were
fully manned. He wants to cut after Rahm volunteered to host both the G8
and NATO summits next May. We haven't seen a raise in years, manpower is to
the point where many beats go unmanned on all three watches, police
shootings are up, attacks on police are up, morale is down and the Mayor has
all
but declared war on City employees, especially Police and Fire.
Bend over, her it comes......from the Sun-Times
Chris Karney, Chicago IL
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Supt. Garry McCarthy to cut $190M from police budget:
Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Tuesday he’s been asked to cut
$190 million from the Police Department’s $1.3 billion annual budget and
would only get halfway there by eliminating police vacancies.
“We are looking at absolutely everything. There are ways to save money but
the question is, how close to the bone do we have to get?” McCarthy said.
“We have to eliminate about $190 million. We are at a point right now
that, if we eliminated all our vacancies, we would save approximately $93
million. That gets us about halfway.”
There are about 13,500 budgeted positions for sworn officers and about
1,400 vacancies. About 775 officers are on medical leave, a department
spokeswoman said.
Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), former chairman of the City Council’s Police
Committee, has infuriated the Fraternal Order of Police with his cost-cutting
suggestions.
Beale recommended axing officers’ $1,800 a year uniform allowance as well
as duty-availability pay — a supplemental $2,800 a year lump sum that
compensates officers for being on call at any time.
Asked whether those items are on his hit list, McCarthy would only say “
that has to be negotiated” when the police contract expires June 30.
But he said, “We are looking at cutting 15 to 20 percent across the board.”
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley routinely saved tens of millions of dollars
by authorizing a certain number of officers in his annual budget, then
failing to fill police vacancies or keep pace with attrition. His final budget
was a classic example. It authorized the hiring of 200 additional police
officers, but not one of them has been hired or entered the police academy.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel may have no alternative but to play the same manpower
game. But that would run contrary to his campaign promise to put an
additional 1,000 police officers in the patrol division — and his recent
promise to
erase a more than $635 million shortfall without cutting police, raising
taxes or using one-time or casino revenues. “We’re not changing how many
police we have. I’m not going to skimp on public safety,” the mayor told the
Chicago Sun-Times earlier this month.
Civic Federation President Laurence Msall welcomed Emanuel’s decision to
make deep cuts in the police department’s budget, which previous mayors have
viewed as politically untouchable.
In a road map to fiscal solvency released two months ago, the Civic
Federation urged the new mayor to eliminate “unnecessary layers of management”
and supervisory benefits in the police department, reduce “chronic
absenteeism” and redraw maps of police districts and “strategize beat staffing”
based on the U.S. census, 911 calls and relevant crime data.
“We feel strongly that the Chicago Police Department needs to right-size
its management to reflect potential savings generated from following the
leaner management of New York City and Houston, both of which operate with
fewer management layers,” Msall said.
Msall hedged when asked whether $190 million can be squeezed from the
police budget without eliminating police vacancies.
“More important than the number of sworn officers is the number of
patrolmen working the streets and responding to calls,” Msall said.
In his first 100 days in office, McCarthy has shifted 750 cops to patrol
from desk jobs and from disbanded citywide teams such as the Mobile Strike
Force and Targeted Response Unit. He also recently eliminated several layers
of the command structure at the top.
The Civic Federation has proposed a similar cut in the Fire Department’s
budget by re-evaluating everything from minimum staffing requirements for
fire apparatus to the number and location of fire stations and by examining
ways to outsource and reduce disability absences. The review would be the
first since a largely ignored 1999 report by the Tri-Data Corp.
During an interview on his first 100 days in office, Emanuel noted that
the number of fires has steadily declined over the years. Without offering
specifics, the mayor said he has “some ideas” about how to make more
effective use of firefighter downtime.
“I’m aware of what has happened over the years, but there are choices to
be made,” he said. “As I go to the engine houses, I say, ‘What happens
here guys can’t be sacrosanct.’ ”
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