By Kevin Lavery, WKAR News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-971729.mp3
Lansing, MI – The layoff process for Lansing public safety workers has begun. Forty-four city police officers have received their notices. The pink slips are arriving as the city of Lansing is asking its police force for more than $3 million in concessions. City officials say they can spare 61 jobs if the police union can match funds that Lansing has received through state shared revenue payments.
But union leaders say it's too much for their rank and file to afford. Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 141 executive director Tom Krug says the layoffs squarely impact patrol officers.
AUDIO:
TOM KRUG: Sergeants have bumped back into the patrol ranks, which again bumps more patrol officers out of the bottom. A lot of the specialty units are going to lose members such as K-9, the tactical team, the dive team; it appears the entire traffic unit is going to be dispersed. But all of the positions come out of the patrol ranks.
KEVIN LAVERY: And some of these, as you mentioned the tactical team, involve very highly trained, very highly specialized fields within law enforcement and probably very expensive to train people?
KRUG: Both K-9 and the tactical team are very high stress jobs, highly trained, a lot of money; thousands and thousands of dollars go into each of these officers for their training and cannot just be easily replaced. You just can't tomorrow say, you're the K-9 officer; here's your dog,' or now you're in the tactical team.' Again, they go through hours and hours of training to become proficient.
LAVERY: This union is meeting with the city in terms of concessions. The city is asking for just over $3 million, which could potentially save 61 jobs. That rests, though, on the city's ability to come up with matching funds through state shared revenue payments. Where do these talks stand right now?
KRUG: We have met with the city as recently as last week. We have given concessions. A year ago, we made a major change in hours, in shift work. It saved approximately 80 percent of the overtime at the Lansing Police Department in the last year, so it gave us a year to look at it. That's a huge savings to the city. Those hours are disruptive to our members, but we want to continue those. We've made concessions in bargaining talks less than a year ago on premium share for health care, changes in our drug riders for health care. So we have been making changes all along. We're willing to give some concessions, but we can't come up with three or four million dollars from the members that we represent.
LAVERY: What is morale like in the ranks?
KRUG: Morale, from what I hear -- and I talk to a lot of the officers - it's at an all-time low. They don't want to come to work; we tell them to keep their heads up high, they've not been abusing their sick time, they're coming to work, they're doing the best job that they can...but when you know a month from now that this is life-changing for your family, it's kind of hard to be real happy, chipper, and aggressive, I guess.
LAVERY: Back on May 24, I spoke with Virg Bernero, the mayor of Lansing, and he did speak about the prospect of layoffs and what it would take to maintain safety in the city:
VIRG BERNERO: I'm not happy about laying anybody off, of course, and we tried to pass the millage; that failed. But we will continue to be a safe city; I'm confident of that. We have seen crime really level off in spite of the fact that the economy is hurting and crime in other areas is going up. The fact of the matter is, violent crime in Lansing has not gone up.
KRUG: I heard the mayor's comments, and I guess I don't understand where his statistics are coming from when he says violent crime and crime is not up. I think the May 23 release of the FBI statistics show that violent crime is up in the city of Lansing. In 2009 Lansing was listed as 80th in the country. It has moved up the ranks or down the ranks, whichever way you'd like to look at it, to number 24. And that's based on violent crime.
LAVERY: What do you tell the average Lansing citizen given that information and given the backdrop of this tight budget and this significant staff reduction scenario?
KRUG: Well, I think the citizens are going to have to be more diligent; they're going to have to hopefully help the few police that are out there be their eyes and ears. But the citizens can't do it alone. We would hope that somewhere along the line we were going to be able to save some of these 44 positions, and at this point we haven't been able to.
LAVERY: The city of Lansing's budget goes into effect on July 1, just under 30 days from now. What outcome are you working towards in the next 30 days that you'd like to see in terms of a resolution, and what happens after July 1?
KRUG: Well, I'd like to see the mayor use the revenue sharing that he did get to bring back police and fire positions, and then still continue to work with the unions and which we have been to try to bring back more officers. And I do think eventually down the line the citizens, if the service is still not at the level that they want, somewhere down the line we will again need to look at a millage or some way to stabilize police and fire funds so every year we're not going through this over and over again.