Council Passes Layoff Plan

Fourteen employees, including two firefighters, will lose their jobs and four more will be demoted in a layoff plan the City Council approved Monday to help bridge a $3.5 million budget shortfall.

Seventeen positions will also be eliminated in the plan, which replaces reductions to part-time employment and furloughs previously proposed. The layoffs and demotions are projected to save $416,000, while the job eliminations will result in $621,609 in projected savings.

Members of the governing body noted constraints caused by this year’s 4 percent budget cap and warned that a 2 percent cap next year will give the city even less leeway for savings without concessions from all of the city’s bargaining units.

“I believe it will get worse,” Councilman Adrian Mapp said. “More employees will be affected.”

Only two unions, the Plainfield Municipal Employees Association and the Plainfield Municipal Managers Association, have voluntarily offered concessions, City Administrator Bibi Taylor said.

Mapp said he suggested to Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs that she go to the bargaining units to get concessions that will save jobs. In response, the mayor said there had been many meetings with unions, but also noted police and fire divisions each had seven positions eliminated, “so they were impacted.” She said she is calling a meeting with all union representatives at noon Wednesday in City Hall to explore “what can we give back collectively.”

Councilman Rashid Burney also asked the administration to “think outside of the box,” saying, “next year we are going to be back here again.” Councilman Cory Storch said if police don’t give back something in the way of benefits, Correction: “staffing will be decimated over the next three years.”

Bureny, Storch, Mapp and Council President Annie McWilliams voted “yes” on the layoffs, while Councilwoman Bridget Rivers voted “no.” Rivers said she could not support the plan because she felt the administration did not vet all aspects of the plan.

“Everybody must get affected,” she said.

Firefighters dominated the large crowd that attended the special meeting, waiting first for the scheduled 8 p.m. opening that did not come until 9:30 p.m. The audience no sooner sat down in Municipal Court than McWilliams announced a closed session that all but affected employees would have to vacate.

The crowd swarmed back into the hallway, only to be told the council had decided to meet upstairs inside the adjacent police headquarters. Back in the courtroom, the audience waited until 10:22 p.m. for the special meeting to resume. After the vote on the layoff plan and another vote on an IT shared services plan with the school district, the public comment portion drew emotional pleas from affected employees to save their jobs.

On behalf of the firefighters, Fire Chief Cecil Allen said the division was down to 96 firefighters from 125 to 128 and his administrative staff was down to 8 from 19 previously. A reorganization plan put three lieutenants back into fire suppression, he said, and fire engines were going out short-staffed.

“It may not look like the Fire Division is doing its part as far as working with the administration, but I think we are,” Allen said. “We don’t have much more to give.”

Others warned that cuts to health and inspections could result in the spread of disease and even a rise in fires due to illegal occupancy of unsecured, vacant buildings.

McWilliams wondered aloud how the city got to a point of such limited resources and high taxes, calling the council’s action “just an all-around difficult decision to make.” But Taylor said the situation was not specific to Plainfield, but was endemic to other municipalities in the state and around the country.

“We are facing a paradigm shift in how we do business,” she said. “There is no short answer on how we got here.”

--Bernice Paglia