Providence Police Offer $6M Alternative to Layoffs
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
The Providence police union has come up with an alternative to laying off 60 to 80 officers that entails a combination of retirement incentives and cutbacks to overtime, according to Joe Rodio, chief legal counsel to the union.
The alternative plan likely would achieve the $6 million the city is hoping to save in the Police Department budget for next year, according to Rodio. He said the union and the city have been holding talks over the proposed plan over the weekend and into this week—culminating in a meeting with the union membership yesterday afternoon.
The biggest money saver would be in retirements. Rodio said the union is proposing that the city offer up to two years of service credits to about 130 officers who are eligible to retire.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“It’s some incentive, but it’s not a lot of incentive,” Rodio said.
If offered, he said the city can plan on about 40 of those eligible take the incentive to retire instead of staying on the job.
Retirements could save about $4 million
Of course, that means that the city would be paying for their pensions, but Rodio said those are already built into the actuarial projections for the costs of the city pension system. He roughly estimates that offering the incentive would cost the city about $500,000, yielding a net savings of about $4 million.
The union also is suggesting that the city continue to keep overtime costs low. Last year, overtime cost Providence approximately $5 million. This year, overtime is down to about $3 million. Keeping it at that level would help save another $2 million next year.
Rodio said the city has been able to rein in costs by eliminating unnecessary overtime.
Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.
Meanwhile, details on the planned layoffs remained scarce yesterday. Rodio said that as of Tuesday, the city wasn’t even sure how many officers it would need to lay off.
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