York, P.A. to Layoff Fire and Police

The city of York, Pennsylvania is getting ready to approve its budget for next year and when they do some serious cuts to the budget they are actually going to have to get rid of a significant number of staffers. Both the police department and the fire department are expecting to lose staff by the time that the 2012 budget it completely figured out.

While there will be no official news until the members of the city council get it together and make the official vote which will happen later on in this week. The unofficial word on the street is that members of the council are going to vote in favor of job cuts in order to cut back.

A poll of the members of the city council, which seems to have been conducted by ydr.com shows that the members are ready and willing to get rid of the staff in order to balance the budget. That is not to say that they are happy about it. The poll shows that the majority of the members are in favor of cutting back on eight of the police officers and about five of the police officers in order to bring the 2012 budget back into balance and close up the gap in the budget.

The aforementioned budget gap is about 1.8 million for the next year and members of the city council have been working to try and find a way to cut the budget without cutting jobs since November. The budget gap has been known since the mayor of the city, Kim Bracey, released her proposed budget in that same month. The proposal also called for an increase to local taxes of about 11%.

As you can imagine the tax increase would not be popular with the voters at an time, let along during a long term economic slump, and so most of the member of the city council are aiming to reduce the amount of that increase the very least with these job cuts. Or, at least that is how it seems to have been the initial goal. Now many members of the council are simply hoping that the town can keep the increase at only 11%, and that they will not have to move it up and further.

The way things are falling out right now only two actual firefighters will be cut the rest will come from vacant positions that will simply be left unfilled in the new budget in order to save case. The members of the city council estimate that this move could save the city about $98,000.

The cuts to the police department will be made between attrition and standard layoffs that are set to save the city about $384,000. As you can see the city will save a significant amount of money, but nowhere near the amount that is needed, so other cuts to the city’s jobs and service may be required in order to keep things fiscally sound. Only time will tell what other cuts will need to be made in order to right the budget.