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Budget crunch depends on union
Banner Daily Update Thurs. Mar. 6
By Pru Sowers
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN – The depth and breadth of service cutbacks and Town Hall layoffs looming because of a $323,000 budget deficit hinges on a union member vote scheduled for today.
Town manager Sharon Lynn said the AFCSME union, which represents approximately 50 municipal employees, is voting Thursday on whether to reduce their workweek from 40 hours to 37.5. If they agree to the hour and accompanying salary reduction, the cutback would apply to all staff members, except in the police department and school system.
The workweek reduction will save the town approximately $277,000, helping decrease the budget deficit to just under $46,000.
That will keep staff layoffs to one full-time person, or a combination of people who may see their positions reduced to summer only, Lynn said.
“They [union members] cut their hours or we do layoffs. They know that,” she said Wednesday.
Lynn presented several other scenarios to selectmen Wednesday on how to close the budget gap. If the union votes not to reduce members’ hours, the financial picture becomes more dramatic. Lynn said the three percent salary increase already approved for municipal employees will not go into effect and town trash collection will be eliminated. That would still leave a $64,000 budget deficit that would have to be reduced through layoffs, Lynn said.
The other alternative is to lay off five to six full-time staffers, she added.
Selectmen Wednesday agreed to add several articles to the April 7 Town Meeting warrant that would replace trash collection and avoid layoffs if voters approve multiple Proposition 2 ˝ budget overrides, allowing the town to increase taxes above the 2.5 percent level set by the state as the maximum amount taxes can go up each year unless an override is approved. Board of selectman chair Mary-Jo Avellar said municipal trash collection is an essential service to the town’s elderly residents, who would not be able to take their garbage to the dump themselves, or afford a “pay per throw” fee charged per bag for collection.
“It is an essential service in a resort town. To say it’s not an essential service is a big, fat whopper,” she said.
For more on this story see the March 13 Provincetown Banner.
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Mar 6th, 2008