Bossier City Council President Don Williams has put the word out that the council wants to hear from the public on the 2010 budget. While the mayor’s budget called for 40 layoffs in each the fire and police departments, and 37 cuts elsewhere in the city, several council members have been meeting in an effort to stave off any layoffs of officers and firemen on the street.
They are working to get people who have reached eligibility to go ahead and retire and to find money to plug the gaps that are left.
Positions will still be eliminated, but not through layoffs, if they can get the plan consolidated and approved.
If the council can achieve that, freeze hiring, and if they follow it very closely every month as David Jones has suggested, the city could suffer as few casualties of the financial crisis as possible.
The next city council meeting will be next Tuesday at 3PM. Please attend and share your thoughts with the council.
Video of yesterday’s meeting is courtesy of KTBS.
It is very important for people to attend the next two meetings. I know not everyone wants to speak publicly but your presence says a lot to the city council.
ReplyDeleteHeather Carter
I received this information from a council men so we can better understand what changes they are looking at:
ReplyDeletePOLICE:
Mayors Budget--Layoff 40 Positions---out of those 40 positions, 16 of those are filled leaving 26 actual officers on the line to be laid off.
Council's Budget---40 positions minus 16 that are not filled leaves 26. The council will retain 21 of these positions leaving the 5 that are presently in the academy to be laid off.
I hope this helps.
Heather Carter
I requested information about the fire dept. lay off numbers and this is what I received. Please let me know if you have any questions.This information is from a memeber of the city council.
ReplyDeleteHeather Carter
This is the Firefighters number.
Mayors Budget----Cut 40 positions----2 were not filled already-----that leaves 38 people to be laid off.
Councils Budget----The 38 people to be laid off t...he council will keep 20 firefighters---8 activeduty firefighters would be laid off plus the 10 in the academy. So basically we kept 20 police and 20 fire.
We cut 21 people from city departments and made every department including fire and police to cut 15% out of their budget other than salaries. This is how we came up with 2 million dollars to keep fire and police.
I was looking at the budget besides the personel being cut I see many areas that can be cut. and beside that if they are cutting for example from 4 to 2 why would they increase uniform allowance and it looks like we are paying to many mobile phones and parks and recreation looks a little heavy and I have g-kids that play baseball. and how many knew we pay 35,000 for N. Bossier Tennis Pro?? I see expenses that went from something like $100 to $1000.
ReplyDeleteJim, can you put the Jetson video up here? My mom and dad want to view it and don't know how to get to it...
ReplyDeletePS everyone, my Pat Simon is coming home! :)
The numbers are looking better but I believe if they had gone to the department heads first they could have saved a lot of heart ache. the city will have to slow down spending but can not cut the bread and butter of the city to get back in line.
ReplyDeleteI know they think this is being a smarty but what is the mayor giving up? his office will need to learn to do more with less like the rest of the departments. his office has a receptionist and secretary, face the facts and cut one! they need to get serious and look deep and compare what the actual budget was 2-3 years ago allowing for cost increase but spending can be cut for a year or two and get back on track.
the city is growing but the vision of growth has to be done at a realistic pace that we can afford.
Who do you think made up the budget? It was the dept heads.
ReplyDeleteSome of the dept heads were told what area could and could not be cut from. They were not allow to make cuts where they saw fit.
ReplyDeleteBe careful about speaking up at the meetings... The Bossier Mafia IS watching/listening. Some of our jobs may depend on it.
ReplyDeleteWhat's that supposed to mean to regular people "the Bossier Mafia is watching/listening"? Is there something specific we should know?
ReplyDeleteIts hard to think that any of these politicians should worry about this blog or the supporters of it - only people that showed up are a handful of folks related to the people about to be laid off - the real truth is that this very vocal minority are the only ones that care about this issue - the proof is in the number of people going to the city council meetings - even look at Pastor Harper - his son is one of the folks about to be laid off - is that why he is there?
ReplyDeleteDr. Harper is there to support what is right as well as his son. I believe there are ways to trim the fat from the budget without cutting any personel. I believe a few of the city councilmen are working hard to find ways to help but I don't know if the mayor and Jones are listening. they are arrogant and they spent too much and now want to cut the personel back to what it was in 2000, problem is the City is now moving into 2010.
ReplyDeleteif they want to hear from citizens I suggest someone talk to Jones and tell him he should give the same respect that he expects given to him. we are all tired and I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing the same things over and over but we are trying to get a message across but Jones has been rude, laying back in the chair, eyes rolling, getting up walking around and talking to others when someone is speaking. I believe jones is reading this so here is my message to you to get respect you have to earn it. Jones should at least pretend to care or not show up at all. Disrespect is not acceptable.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear that the self serving members of the police and fire who are the only ones complaining would have the city credit card spend its way to keep them a job - seems like jones wants to do the same thing - i say get rid of water and sewer and just have a bunch of cops arresting anyone peeing in their yard and attempting to steal water from the red river - the fire could stay behind and run the rescue boat for the folks that fall in
ReplyDeleteIt's really sad that you see the city that way. The police and fire depts always get a bad rap, but who is the first person you call when you need help. I hate to see anyone loose their job, but response time will increase and the level of care you receive will suffer if the city looses 20 police officers and 20 firemen. I'm sure if you feel that strongly about the city being so horrible Shreveport would be happy to have you.
ReplyDeleteIf you a going to point fingers at a council men why don't you start with Larkin who said uh I don't understand more time than I could count last night.
I'm not sure how you figure getting rid of water and sewer fits into this, but if you constantly borrow and run up credit cards at home and finally run out of resources you don't get rid of the kids. today the kids are family and right now the families are all employees of the city that have there jobs on the line.
ReplyDeleteyou realize you have to cut some spending. increased spending to build the city has to slow down to the pace that can be handled, many families that are moving to this area look at safety when moving to new locations. Even the military does not all live on base and will either choose BC, or the surrounding area. low crime rate and fire/safety helps build our city. we have growth in the city in every direction, who protects and serves when the new shopping and housing in being brought here. you can't go back in time. or we will really be paying the price later.