The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Layoffs could have been avoided, Young says

Dayton City Manager Rashad Young

ENLARGE PHOTO

Staff photo by Lisa Powell Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl

ENLARGE PHOTO

Staff photo by Skip Peterson Randy Beane, president of the Dayton Fraternal Order of Police

ENLARGE PHOTO

Santorum to visit Warren County
11:50 p.m.
Benefit dinner held for girl  who died in car accident
11:12 p.m.
Suburbs looking for ways to save, focus on regional issues
11:11 p.m.
Victim of human trafficking speaks to students
11:01 p.m.
Bullying law brings rule changes
10:04 p.m.
> More headlines

By Joanne Huist Smith and Kyle Nagel
Staff Writers Updated 2:13 AM Thursday, July 9, 2009

DAYTON — City Manager Rashad Young said that if the city’s police union agreed to accept a proposed wage freeze and four furlough days, 11 officers slated for layoff on Aug. 3 would keep their jobs.

“They will not be laid off,” Young said.

Young and Police Chief Richard Biehl held a press conference Wednesday, July 8, to announce the layoff plans. Earlier in the day, the 11 officers and union leadership learned of the cuts.

The officers, who have a little less than a year of experience, were trained in the Dayton Police Academy and are “pretty devastated” by the news, said Randy Beane, president of the Dayton Fraternal Order of Police.

“We’re at desperately low numbers already, and the city leaders chose to ignore the safety of the people,” Beane said after exiting the meeting.

Beane said he would discuss Young’s statement with his membership and the decision on possible acceptance would be up to the membership. He said that the union doesn’t believe four furlough days are necessary economically and that the union was more open to discussing the wage freeze.

“We’re quite perplexed,” Beane said. “We’re kind of concerned about the ethics involved in doing this.”

Beane said the department has 396 officers before the pending layoffs. That number was already 99 officers short of the department’s recent standard of about 495 officers, he said.

Statewide, Ohio municipalities have one police officer for every 495 residents, according to a 2007 FBI report, the most recent available. Dayton ranks third among the state’s cities with 50,000 or more residents with the lowest officer-to-resident ratio, at one officer for every 398 residents. Only Cleveland (one officer for each 265 residents) and Cincinnati (one officer for each 300 residents) fared better than Dayton, according to the FBI numbers.

Young said the city is facing a roughly $6 million shortfall for the remainder of the year. He estimated that the job reductions in the Police Department will save the city approximately $773,000 a year. Which equals 1.5 percent reduction in the Police Department’s 2009 budget.

“Unfortunately, we are joining a growing list of other communities that have been forced to consider police personnel reductions as part of their overall cost-cutting moves, including Cincinnati, Columbus, Toledo and the Montgomery, Greene and Hamilton County Sheriff offices,” Young said.

While the FOP has stated that its membership is already 99 officers few than in recent years, Biehl said “we need to forget about the past.”

“I think that folks need to let go of that history. This is a different time, a different environment,” Biehl said.

In June, it was announced that continually falling revenues had left the city with a mid-year budget deficit of at least $4 million.

Lagging income tax revenue of $2.7 million and local government fund losses of $2.1 million, among other declining revenue streams, forced city leaders to take another hard look at the budget.

“These are very young, aggressive officers,” Beane said. “I have a hard time getting out of my mind the picture of city officials eating on the public dollar at catered events while they’re laying off police officers.”

Beane went as far as to say the union could explore a possible recalling of Mayor Rhine McLin.

“We believe the city is mismanaged,” Beane said.

Share this article