Layoffs will cost us more in the long run

[WNYresident]

A opinion from www.buffalo.com


The opinion (http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20040308/1053730.asp)

Layoffs will cost us more in the long run

3/8/2004

As a result of the layoff of 25 report technicians in the Buffalo Police Department last November, more than a quarter of a million dollars has already been spent on forced overtime. The entire payroll cost for the laid-off technicians is $800,000. Therefore, if these technicians were returned to work, the city would save $250,000.
The current workload is overwhelming. Report technicians are burned out from working eight hours on and eight hours off, and have filed more than 100 grievances. Additionally, the response time to emergency calls in the city has increased. This is due to the number of officers forced to work desk duty to catch up with the paperwork, amassed with the recent layoff. Do we want our officers behind a desk, or on the streets protecting the public? These layoffs will cost more money in the long run. Why can't our financial officers and the control board see that this is a mistake?

KIM DRAGONE
Buffalo

[citymouse]

I have often said the administration is not concerned with actually doing something, but rather just presenting the apperance of doing something.
The Buffalo news the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and the public called for layoffs so the city gave them layoffs.
It is not the first time the city has layed of people resulting in higher overtime costs. This administration has wasted millions on shortsighted moves like this.
This one however has resulted in less cops on the street at any given time. They will never say they made a mistake, however, and even though they found eight million dollars you won't see them using it to bring these people back.

[Curmudgeon]

could it be that the people remaining are milking it to collect overtime and stymie management? What better than to run up the bill and use it as evidence that their bosses don't know what they're talking about. 2 words - WORK SLOWDOWN....

[WNYresident]

City mouse is right, we want layoffs so they give them to us without acutally looking at the big picture... It's like they are scrambling to keep thier political theifdoms running.

I don't know about you people but I know i'm not happy with the people we have running our future. Specially when they are more worried about thier futures and not WNY's.

[WNYresident]

Originally posted by Curmudgeon
could it be that the people remaining are milking it to collect overtime and stymie management? What better than to run up the bill and use it as evidence that their bosses don't know what they're talking about. 2 words - WORK SLOWDOWN....

I could easily see this being the case too. If this happens to be happening they should be fired immediately. No stupid excuses.

[citymouse]

There is no slowdown in regards to the police report techs.
The job was created a few years ago to releive the police from time consuming paper work required for arrests, bookings, warrent searches and background checks.
They actually had some police officers doing this work full time. It was hailed as a grate move by the then administration in all the media. Lower paid civilians doing the work putting all the police on the street where they were needed.
There is no slowdown, they don't have enough people doing the job. They are not allowing the few report techs left to us thier vacation and are forcing them to work double shifts.
Most of them are women with families who don't want the overtime but are given no choice.
The shortage in manpower has also resulted in police being removed from the street for long periods to do paper work at a patrolmans salary (or higher).
In addition warrant searches and back ground checks are so backlogged that people with outstanding warrants are in some cases probably walking out the door and on the street because there is no way to check fast enough.
If you need a background check for any reason, you better not be in a hurry it may take a few weeks, the fact that you pay a fee for this service dosen't matter.
Al this and the fact of the increased cost in the budget makes one think it was extremly short sighted to lay those people off.
Service suffered and it ended up costing more.
What sense does that make?

[Deerhunter]

in laying off the RT's. To put it in perspective, imagine there are 10 bank tellers on a typical friday at your bank. Then out of nowhere they layoff 5. The bank still has the same amount of people cashing their checks, but there are now 5 fewer tellers. So the remaining customers will wait. It happens downtown. You book a suspect at the Holding Center, then proceed to Central Booking to do the paperwork. It was suppossed to save time and money, what happens now...An arrest takes a car out of service for 2,3,4, somtimes 5 hrs. Thats half your shift. On top of that , OT is paid to the Cops because were running over our shift. I don't know who proposed the cuts, but they did not look very closely at the ramifications. And now seem reluctant to admit their error and correct it. When you read about OT costs increasing in the Police Dept. I can assure you, it is directly related to the Admin cutting the RT's. It was a mistake.

[Night Owl]

I don't know about you people but I know i'm not happy with the people we have running our future. Specially when they are more worried about thier futures and not WNY's.

I'm in your boat, WNYresident.

[tomac]

Originally posted by Curmudgeon
could it be that the people remaining are milking it to collect overtime and stymie management? What better than to run up the bill and use it as evidence that their bosses don't know what they're talking about. 2 words - WORK SLOWDOWN....

And once again Mr. Know-it-all comes to the fore with the real reason that the area's screwed up! When something doesn't work here it's got to be the fault of the labor force, right?
Listen, a bunch of years ago, the City Hospital (now known as ECMC) had a full-sized staff doing billing in their financial office. Then some politician got the bright idea that we don't need no steeeeekin' employees there (or at least not as many) so the job was attritioned down to a couple of ladies working, one per shift. This means that if the lady working the day shift has to take off to care for a sick kid, the other two have to work twelve hour shifts to make up the difference. God help the County if two have to take off, because then that work doesn't get done until they get back.
I went to that office once or twice, a couple of years before I retired. I seem to remember them saying that they were about three or four months behind schedule.
Of course, we could let Crummie and his boys do it, but would that step really save us any money?
Crummie, maybe you should get down in the trenches before you kepp on spouting about how "we" should be fighting this war.
It's easy to be an armchair quarterback......