Wilmington Lays Off Firefighters, Police, City StaffTitle5

From WKRC TV, April 13

WILMINGTON, OH – The city of Wilmington is cutting its fire department in half and laying off more than a dozen firefighters along with a similar number of police officers and several city staff members.

Jeremy Lane, Vice President of the Firefighter's Union, says the city eliminated 11 part-time firefighters yesterday and will layoff four full-time firefighters today. One of those full-time jobs is for the city's fire inspector-that person will have the option of leaving his or her job, and returning to a firefighter position, displacing another worker.

Before the layoffs, the department had 33 part and full-time firefighters on staff.

The mayor of Wilmington, David L. Raizk, issued a statement today regarding the layoffs and blames them on reports of decreasing revenues. "In January, I stated in the State of the City report that we would have to address our falling revenue situation because we have a budget deficit-to-revenue of $1.9 million in the general fund. We have worked exhaustingly to find revenue and cost-cutting measures but since approximately 80% of our budget is personnel we have to make some tough, heartbreaking decisions."

Raizk goes on to mention the firefighter layoffs and says the city will also let go four police officers through attrition, one full-time and one part-time employee from Parks & Recreations, two full-time employees in the Service Department, and one full-time employee in the Service Administration.

There will be additional "personnel restructuring" such as the Service Director taking over building inspections and the Assistant Fire Chief taking over Fire Inspections City Council members have agreed to take a ten percent reduction in pay and other elected officials have agreed to double their contribution to their health insurance from ten percent to twenty percent. The city is also instituting a voluntary furlough program which is being used by several employees.

The city will implement other significant budget cuts and cost-saving measures to reduce deficit-to-revenue by almost half. The mayor says, "We also believe that these measures will not jeopardize the public safety or diminish the high quality of service that we provide our citizens. Since the cessation of operations at the airpark, not only has our revenue diminished but also the demand for our services, including safety services, has decreased. We are right-sizing to more closely align ourselves with revenue and demand for service."