BUCYRUS — Bucyrus City Council and city officials met Tuesday evening on the Go To Meeting website to consider changes to the city’s billet and manpower of city departments.
At the beginning of the meeting, Mayor Jeff Reser withdrew a proposal he made last week to hire 20 part-time police officers and 20 part-time firefighters.
In a letter to council and the media, Reser outlined the proposal and the reasons for withdrawing it:
Last week our administration requested legislation to allow the city of Bucyrus to supplement our Safety Forces by hiring additional employees on a part-time basis in response to the rapidly changing threat of the COVID-19 virus on our workforce. Our intention was to maintain our services to the community in case any of our departments, as well as Portsmouth EMS, in the case that any of these departments became incapacitated through quarantine.
The local COVID-19 news has been better this week in regards to the amount of cases that we have in our area and we have a sense that the work that is being done to slow the spread is working. In addition, we had a conference call with representatives from Portsmouth Ambulance and we were assured that they were adjusting well to the situation and that an interruption in service is not anticipated at this time.
The situation may change in the future—no one knows how we will be required to act to ensure the safe continuation of our Safety Forces and EMS but for now, we are withdrawing our request to allow us to hire part-time workers.
A letter was submitted on behalf of the Fraternal Order of Police Bucyrus Lodge No. 68 opposing the addition of part-time officers.
Former BFD employee Mike Hassinger shared his thoughts on the proposal, which were read during the meeting.
In discussions by the finance committee to make changes to the billet, Reser said he has discussed with city employees going to a 32-hour workweek and the employees said they prefer to be laid off.
“We have to look ahead and make necessary changes as needed,” Reser said.
Reser said he and other city officials are meeting with department heads next week to consider staff reductions in anticipation of revenue reductions in the near future.
“We are anticipating up to a 20-percent decrease in revenue for the city which is $1.2 million,” Reser said. “It may be worse than 2008.”
Proposed changes to manpower staffing include pay raises non-union and union employees through the recently passed AFSCME contract.
“Traditionally, the city has given equal pay raises to the non-union employees as were agreed upon for union employees. I think it’s totally insane to be giving pay raises to either group right now with the possibility of police and fire department layoffs due to the decrease in city revenue due to the pandemic situation,” council president Kurt Fankhauser said.
City auditor Joyce Schifer said the pay raises need to be in place this week to complete payroll but can be retroactive if need be.
Proposed changes to the billet by the finance committee include the removal of a part-time position of casual secretary for the law director’s office and changing the wording of two labor positions in the street department to skilled labor along with other issues.
The billet and manpower changes were discussed by council during the special council meeting following the committee’s meeting.
Councilmember Lisa Alsept wants the changes to be in written format for her review before voting on the issue, but Schifer said the changes need to be in place for her department to complete payroll.
It was decided another special meeting will be Thursday, April 16 at 7 p.m. online to consider the issues for a vote.