Mayor Bill Finch announced on Tuesday the city and Laborer’s International Union of North America, Local 200 have reached agreement calling for union members to take 6.5 furlough days to achieve the union’s targeted goal of $91,021 in savings to the city. The budget approved by the Bridgeport City Council calls for $2 million in union concessions to lessen the tax impact. The city is now six months into the budget year.
So far, unaffiliated workers including discretionary appointees of the mayor, LIUNA and the Typographical (Printer’s) Union are taking furloughs to help close the $2 million budget gap, according to the city.
“Our membership voted overwhelmingly to work with the City, agreeing to take furloughs to help close the budget gap and avoid potential job losses for our members,” said LIUNA Local 200 Business Manager Cory Bromley, in a news release issued by the mayor’s office.
“Thank you to LIUNA members for stepping up to the plate and being leaders to assist us in closing the budget shortfall,” said Finch. “We are continuing our negotiations with other City unions and look forward to similar decisions in the coming weeks.”
The city has not reached agreement with the largest city unions.
Lennie,
What is this? Why is Finch announcing really good news on New Year’s Eve? Slow news day. What are they hiding?
Budget shortfall? What is a budget shortfall if not a foolish state of mind on the part of budget planners (City administration-OPM) and budget approvers (City Council) who allow decisions to be made that anticipate givebacks by labor to alternate for revenue flows from taxpayers or outside sources like the State of CT.
True, it is difficult to know what the challenged State legislature will do when they set the State budget (later than the City timeline). However, when you are six months into the year and cannot put a chart in front of the public showing which groups have to agree to what ‘fair proportion’ of a $2 Million budget number, you are behind in the game for sure. Why there have been salary increases during these times, why positions have been upgraded or newly instituted during these times, why we continue to budget and spend for ‘supportive contributions’ and ‘association memberships’ to the extent we do are also questions worthy of being raised. And why is the Airport continuing to be operated at a level with such losses when the City Budget for years has provided a chart that calls the Airport (and several other activities) a non-essential service?
In 2014, Bob Walsh, I would enjoy working with you to drill down as you used to do on these and other topics. How about it? Phone number with voice mail is 203-259-9642 x 1. I think we can survey the field and find more than one spot that deserves digging into in order to get more OPEN, ACCOUNTABLE and TRANSPARENT governance. Time will tell.
*** Once again city workers must give up their time and/or money to help balance the city’s shortfall budget. Just how many years now has this been part of the workers supportive contributions in order to either keep their jobs or avoid layoffs? It has become a political legacy that will forever be attached as part of the Finch Admin years and their high taxes and shortfall budget history in Bpt. ***