Mike Tobin, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Cleveland police union members soundly rejected a deal to sacrifice benefits and save jobs, leaving 252 officers without work on Monday.
Bob Beck, president of the police union, said members refused to accept the concessions because they feel they were being asked to bear the brunt of closing the city’s $61 million general fund deficit.
Police voted 1,050 to 235 against the package. If the union had accepted the deal, 90 officers would have kept their jobs.
“We will not have the blame deflected on us for the mayor’s mismanagement,” Beck said.
“They spend money from the general fund like they have $1 million in the checking account when they only have $500,000.”
Mayor Jane Campbell will cut $21 million from the 2004 police budget, mostly by eliminating 263 positions. Five of the officers, however, are being transferred to jobs in other departments, and six others were due to retire.
The layoffs, which take effect Monday, will leave the Police Department with about 1,560 officers.
The department stands to take the biggest hit in Cleveland’s budget cuts because police spending is the largest single general-fund expenditure. The city spent $187 million, more than 35 percent of its general fund, on police in 2003.
Campbell said the police vote was disappointing, but she pledged that Cleveland’s streets will remain safe. A redeployment plan will take police from behind desk jobs and onto the streets.
“It’s too bad they weren’t willing to reach out to their brothers and sisters on the force,” Campbell said.
The police union will pursue a lawsuit against the city to block the cuts. Lawyers for both sides will meet in court Wednesday to argue the union’s request for a restraining order.
Beck said that if the union loses the court case, it will lobby City Council members to reject the mayor’s budget plan.
The concession package called for police to surrender uniform allowances, cut overtime guarantees for off-duty court appearances, take comp time instead of bonuses for shooting-proficiency tests and suspend cash payments for deferred comp time.
Cleveland firefighters approved similar concessions Tuesday, cutting the number of firefighters to lose their jobs from 150 to 70. EMS paramedics previously agreed to concessions and saved all 21 jobs slated to be cut.
Beck heaped scorn on Campbell during Wednesday’s 20-minute news conference at the police union hall.
Beck said he made several suggestions to Campbell about how to save police jobs, including paying for crossing guards out of the schools’ budget instead of the police budget, and having the county pay for jail guards at the county-owned Justice Center.
“If they prioritized things and made some hard decisions, there’d be some discretion where to spend,” Beck said. “But they didn’t want to do that on the advice of a cop.”
Campbell said the city spent hours poring over Beck’s proposals. In the end, administrators concluded the ideas were unrealistic or duplicated savings the city already achieved, she said.
“These allegations he’s made are bogus,” Campbell said. “We went through them chapter and verse.”
Police spending has increased by nearly 15 percent between 2000 and 2003. Some of the increased spending stems from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which forced cities to pay for more security.
But a recent Plain Dealer series found police ringing up hundreds of thousands of dollars of overtime on unnecessary court appearances. And three years ago, when Michael White was still mayor, the city negotiated a series of raises with its police and fire unions.
Yesterday seemed to mark the low point of Campbell’s relationship with the police, who feuded with her predecessor and endorsed Campbell when she ran for mayor in 2001.
Beck praised Campbell during her first two years in office but yesterday accused her of being unfair to police and treating them like dollar figures instead of human beings.
Campbell replied: “I was totally committed to our police officers and I still am.”