Local: There’s nothing sensible about hiring freeze (CORRECTION)
Posted in Local, Overset with tags City of Peoria, firefighters, hiring freeze, Police, taxes on December 25, 2008 by Billy DennisThe City of Peoria recently announced that it is initiating a hiring freeze to help cope with what is sure to be a long and damaging recession. But, this is a “sensible” hiring freeze because it doesn’t include police and firefighters.
Bunk. There is nothing safe about not having enough employees to fix streets and sidewalks*. There’s nothing safe about not having enough workers to perform routine maintenance.
To suggest that we can make do with less is to suggest we are overstaffed now. Look around the city and the number of problems we face, and tell me we don’t need more manpower, not less.
The shabbier our city looks, the more unsafe it seems. And that just drives more people out of the city, which means less tax revenue, which makes the city look even more shabby and feel even less safe. And then more people leave and the cycle continues. We need to break this cycle, not spin the wheel faster.
The reality is that we probably need more cops (and maybe more jail space, but that’s a County of Peoria responsibility) and maybe some more firefighters. And I’d say that we could use better roads and sidewalks, which in my mind means more city workers to maintain them.
What we have instead is fewer workers and status quo on cops and firefighters. Amazing.
I didn’t attend this little press conference, so I don’t know what questions were asked and what answers came forth.
Was there any thought given to, I dunno, maybe NOT raising taxes to building a much wanted, but instead NOT building the little-needed new library branch on the northernmost city limits of Peoria? Was there any thought to implementing the once-discussed plan to implement a public safety tax, which would generate revenue from Peoria’s many large non-profit institutions, many of which demand many services from the city?
Take a look at the hospitals and Bradley: ALL of them are undergoing massive building projects. They aren’t hard up for cash.
And was there any thought given to officially opposing the sales tax Caterpillar and other movers-and-shakers want to implement to help finance the downtown museum project?
This “sensible” plan is a cop out. It creates an illusion of fiscal responsibility, when in reality it lets the decision makers duck having to make really hard decisions that might be unpopular as an election nears.
Feh.
* CORRECTION: Commenter Sud O. Nym notes:
Do you even read the article anymore, or just the headline: “Included under the life safety position umbrella are police officers, firefighters and employees of the public works department.”
If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. My apologies and thanks for the correction.
