Timothy McNulty
Mayor ready to lay off 700 workers
Wed Aug 6 14:47:25 2003
64.140.158.135

Mayor ready to lay off 700 workers in massive cost-reduction plan

Announcement expected soon

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

By Timothy McNulty, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
http://www.post-gazette.com/neigh_city/20030806layoffs0806p1.asp

Mayor Tom Murphy is expected to announce roughly 700 layoffs today or tomorrow as part of a massive restructuring of city spending.

That number is much higher than the 500 jobs that were expected to be lost in the cost reduction plan, which will also call for shutting down such facilities as recreation centers and pools. Murphy is slashing costs to help fill a $60 million hole in the city's $386 million budget.

The layoffs are expected to include 100 police officers, 200 school crossing guards, and 300 employees in the departments of parks, planning, public works and engineering and construction, among others. One hundred vacant positions will not be filled and 50 more positions in the police department will be eliminated through retirements.

If 700 workers are cut, that would represent 16 percent of the city's 4,350 workers.

Murphy wanted the state to fill the budget gap with new taxes and pension aid, but the Legislature is at a stalemate with Gov. Ed Rendell over statewide budget issues and may not reconvene until late September. With that delay, the administration kick-started its planning for the huge spending cuts last week.

It was not clear how much the cuts would save. Even if all the cuts are implemented, the city will still be broke at the end of the year without state budget assistance, the administration has said. The budget shortfall next year is expected to be $81 million.

The city pays 202 crossing guards $2.6 million annually to assist private and public schoolchildren through traffic during the school year. The guards are planning a rally this morning on the portico of the City-County Building Downtown -- five stories down from Murphy's office -- to protest the plans.

The crossing guards are supposed to return to work Aug. 25, when Catholic schools open. City officials are lobbying the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh as well as the city's public schools to help pay the guards.

The Rev. Ronald Lengwin, spokesman for the Catholic diocese, said City Council President Gene Ricciardi asked diocesan officials last week to consider giving the city a one-year grant to help defray crossing guard expenses.

Ricciardi has also asked the Pittsburgh Public Schools to help pay for the guards.

Ira Weiss, an attorney for the Pittsburgh Public Schools, said last night that school officials planned to send Ricciardi a letter today, seeking a formal request from city officials that the school district assume the cost of crossing guards.

In a signal that the council president may be trying to bargain with the district, Ricciardi introduced a measure in City Council Monday that would allow electronic signs Downtown, such as the one the district wants at its new performing arts school on Fort Duquesne Boulevard.

The city zoning board is considering whether to approve a three-story, $2.7 million video screen for the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts.

But Weiss said school officials believe "it would diminish the importance of the safety of our students to make [crossing guards] a chip in the other issue."

Tim McNulty can be reached at tmcnulty@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1542.
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