The City Manager did not include the Mesa Police Association in his proposed budget. The following letter was sent by MPA to the Mayor and city Council for consideration. This is a prime example of why a meet and confer ordinance needs to be adopted. It ensures management is communicating with their front line employees, which leads to better decision making and buy in from employees.
Mesa Police Chief George Gascon informed his agency’s roughly 1,500 employees via video and e-mail that the ongoing efforts to slash the city budget will translate to a $7.6 million cut for the police department up to the rest of this fiscal year, which ends in June. And it doesn’t get better for the next fiscal year, with another $15 million in projected cuts.
In an e-mail sent to employees Wednesday, Gascon alluded to the broader economic crisis facing the nation and Mesa. Gascon chalked out a bullet point-style list of proposed ideas that he’ll likely share with the Mesa City Council in an upcoming study session.
These include reduction of the patrol vehicle fleet by 25 patrol cars and retiring 16 police motorcycles, eliminating 19 vacant sworn officer positions and nine civilian positions, which include seven vacancies and two layoffs.
Sixteen open sworn positions and 26 open civilian positions will be frozen.
There will be a hiring freeze of all sworn positions “until projected financial savings are reached between FY08/09 and FY 09/10,” Gascon stated in the e-mail.
Another proposal is to privatize municipal security. That would cut about 25 filled personnel positions, if approved. These are employees who handle security in city buildings.
There also will be a freeze on purchase of new vehicles in the next fiscal year.
Aviation flight hours could be reduced to five hours per shift.
Equipment, including laptop computers and handheld radios, will have to be shared by officers.
Gascon has an operating budget of $162 million this fiscal year, but the proposed revised budget for this year is down to $157 million. In January, Gascon had announced plans to cut $7.2 million by December 2008.
Sgt. Bryan Soller, president of the Mesa Fraternal Order of Police, a police union, said Thursday he was concerned about the hiring freeze.
“It’s a sad day for Mesa that we even have to get on this road,” Soller said. “Then it goes to officer safety issues and we’ll be shorthanded.”
Soller said he agrees with Gascon’s proposal to “decentralize SWAT and traffic units and do part-time patrol duty.”
Mesa police spokesman Sgt. Ed Wessing, said Gascon believes it’s a better to have traffic units, for instance, at each district versus having a traffic unit in one area of the city.
“That way the division commander of the district would deploy them based on the needs of the district,” Wessing said. They will be performing the same functions, Wessing added.
But Fabian Cota, president of the Mesa Police Association, stated via e-mail that “Both Traffic and the full-time SWAT team, will have their effectiveness impacted negatively as they are scheduled to be farmed out to patrol districts to assist with patrol duties. This will impact their ability to focus 100% on traffic safety and DUI enforcement.”
Cota has been firm about raising the idea of imposing a secondary property tax to finance public safety projects. It’s something he’s been discussing with the city council.
“If the economy improves and sales tax revenues go up for next fiscal year and we levy a secondary property tax, that would allow us some money to staff new buildings and have adequate personnel,” Cota said.
Mesa’s fire and police departments should prepare to do more with less amid proposed budget cuts.
The fire department will move several management positions to field duty and will send two responders to emergency medical calls. Currently, four EMS responders are called out on medical emergencies. Of the 55,000 calls dispatched annually, 70 percent are medical-related and of those, 60 percent are non-life threatening.
Splitting up medic units will free firefighters to focus on more serious calls, Fire Chief Harry Beck said.
Bryan Jeffries, president of the United Mesa Firefighters Association, said moving toward two-man medical units could limit available resources for patients whose condition worsens. Patients could also be forced to wait longer for a full four-man crew, which could ultimately cost lives.
“What they are proposing is the system we had in and Mesa 25 years ago,” he said. “We’re not going to save as many people as we do today.”
The police department plans to decentralize the SWAT team and motorcycle officers to help patrol the city’s streets.
The cutbacks proposed by Police Chief George Gascón, who deferred comment to City Manager Chris Brady, include a freeze on non-essential overtime and the purchase of new vehicles. Officers will also no longer be assigned their own radios or laptop computers.
Fabian Cota, Mesa Police Association president, said redistributing the department’s motorcycle unit - key in battling DUIs - is a mistake.
“With the holidays coming, we should be focusing 100 percent on DUI and traffic enforcement,” Cota said.
He added that city officials should look to bonding, tax and other funding sources, including dipping into the city’s rainy day fund.
“If you have a rainy day fund, this is what it’s for. Basically I’m saying, ‘It’s raining,’ ” Cota said.
Along with a “significant reduction in workforce,” all Mesa employees face a 2 percent reduction in their base pay effective Jan. 5, 2009, City Manager Chris Brady told all city workers in a letter e-mailed Wednesday.
Mesa plans to cut city workers’ jobs, pay
Brady also will propose to the City Council this morning a plan to shift employees to a work schedule of four, 10-hour days instead of the current five, eight-hour days.
Brady’s letter came just one day before a critical budget meeting with the council, where the city manager will, for the first time, give a public presentation about the city’s financial status and plans to deal with an unprecedented revenue shortfall this fiscal year.
Brady aims to reduce personnel costs by $6.8 million in the current fiscal year, which began in July, and by about $14.3 million next fiscal year.
That means city employees will not receive a cost-of-living adjustment or increase in pay based on performance, which were budgeted for the current year. Also, salaries of sworn police officers will not be raised to bring them in line with the market rate.
Part of Brady’s letter states: “The City’s reliance on sales tax has had a significant negative impact on the budget and the revenue shortfall continues to increase in light of a receding economy. Faced with these dramatic and historic shortfalls, we must respond by looking at new approaches for the delivery and administration of services. These recommendations will have significant impacts on the residents who receive these services and will especially impact many of you. The dramatic decline in tax revenues requires that the implementation of these recommendations occur beginning with the new calendar year 2009.”
Broadly speaking, the city will consolidate services where possible and plan for “new service delivery models in some departments.”
Without specifying, Brady noted that some programs will be eliminated.
Mesa Mayor Scott Smith on Wednesday termed the city’s readjustments, which include layoffs, “a human tragedy because of the people involved.” Ideas such as the work schedule shift, which, if approved by the council, could start by February, will be a work in progress, he said.
“When you go to a change like that, there will be a period when you figure out how to work best,” Smith said. “If it doesn’t, then we’ll adjust it based on feedback from the public and employees.”
Smith said that based on other cities that have adopted this model, “residents tend to like the early or later hours to go to the city for services and were willing to sacrifice the Friday availability.”
Mesa suffered a $5.4 million dip in actual sales tax revenue compared with what was projected between June and September this fiscal year. The city’s budgeted sales tax revenue for this fiscal year is $147.2 million.
Mesa police and fire union presidents have both expressed concern about the proposed changes to their respective departments.
Mesa Police Association President Fabian Cota has said the changes, which include pulling traffic units from the streets, for instance, to shift to patrol duty, are moves that will hurt their “ability to protect the public from DUI drivers.”
Bryan Jeffries, president of the Mesa United Firefighters Association, has said they have problems with part of the proposal, which will change the fire department’s response model. Jeffries said that move “will really unnecessarily compromise public safety for critical responses like strokes and fires.”
November 10th
Membership/Board Meeting
MPA Office
Thank you to all the voters, officers and their families who voted YES on Question 1 & 2. This is definitely a victory for the future of Mesa public safety!
Both Question 1 and 2 take care of the needs of the growing parts of the city by building fire stations and much needed street repairs. They also help the established parts of the city by adding public safety capacity and improving intersections. The bonds will cost the average home with an assessed value of $250,000 less than $4 a month.
MPA was active in pursuing the public safety additions for our officers, by donating money to the campaign, and putting our own signs up around the city. We will continue to look out for what is in the best interest of our front-line officers!
Click here for one of the many fliers & website sent out for Question 1 & 2 that MPA contributed to:
Regardless of whether Mesa voters approve a $170 million public safety and street project bond on Tuesday, Police Chief George Gascón warns that his department is charging toward financial pain that could include cutting back the SWAT team and motorcycle patrols.
“We are going to be severely impacted,” Gascón said of pending budget cuts facing the city.
Department and union representatives have met regularly to determine how to best shrink the department’s $162.2 million 2008-09 budget $5 million to $15 million, Gascón said. Depending on how deep those budget will cuts run, layoffs are possible. Our goal collectively is to try to save jobs,” Gascón said Wednesday. “We are exploring a lot of different things.”
Police Department officials have known for some time of the budget crisis and earlier this year cut $3 million in overtime pay. Yet, because of the turbulent economy and shrinking tax revenue that fuels the city’s budget, it wasn’t enough.
In addition to halting overtime, the department has frozen open positions and has backed away from plans to purchase 25 vehicles.
Officials are also discussing whether to put full-time SWAT officers on part-time SWAT and part-time patrol duty. Police union officials agree cuts are needed, but disagree on changes to SWAT.
“Getting rid of a full-time SWAT team is drastic,” said Fabian Cota, president of the Mesa Police Association, one of two police unions. “If you can’t call on SWAT when you need them because they’re now part-time, and are no longer well-trained because they’re part-time, you are going to have a (less safe) city.”
Sgt. Bryan Soller, president of the Arizona Fraternal Order of Police, another union, said a full-time SWAT team is a luxury in good economic times, but when the economy goes sour, a part-time team is better than none at all.
“When times are bad, we need them on the street,” Soller said. “All the other stuff makes us work more efficiently, but the bottom line is we have to take care of our patrol officers on the street.”
Among other possible changes:
• Motorcycle officers might be patrolling in cars. Gascón said motorcycles can be expensive to maintain and when a motor officer makes an arrest, they must call for a squad car to transport a suspect to jail.
• Each Officer might no longer each be issued a laptop computer. Every squad car will have a laptop, but officers could soon be filing more reports using desktop computers at headquarters.
• Handheld police radios might also have to be shared, instead of new officers being issued one when they are hired.
• More civilians could be taking reports on minor incidents when an officer isn’t necessary.
“We are down to the bone in many areas,” Gascón said.
On that, the unions agree.
“Mesa residents have been spoiled,” Soller said. “The citizens are going to get the police force they pay for. Right now we are pulling everything back in and are going back to Policing 101.”
As police move forward with proposed cuts, Monday saw $1 million in budget cuts to the city’s fire department’s $62 million 2008-09 fiscal year budget.
Last week, Fire Chief Harry Beck announced that his department would halt a number of programs and freeze overtime.
In a recent video message to fire personnel, City Manager Chris Brady said cuts to police and fire budgets are unavoidable. They account for more than 70 percent of the city’s budget.
“There is no way we can take out the funds needed only out of those other departments,” Brady said. That will require a significant reduction or elimination of city programs.
City officials hope to narrow their proposed budget cuts within two months to implement reductions Jan. 1.
“It’s not a Mesa-unique thing. We are susceptible to the economy,” Brady added. “All ideas will be considered.”
