By Deena Yellin
The Herald News
CLIFTON, N.J. — The City Council will slash 22 jobs — 10 officers’ positions in both the police and fire departments and one lieutenant in each — in order to comply with a reduced tax-increase limit recently imposed by the state.
The jobs, which are vacant because of recent retirements, will be deleted from the city payroll and can’t be refilled, said city officials.
The mayor and council approved the change at Tuesday night’s meeting, asserting that the job cuts were made in anticipation of tighter budgeting under a new state law that limits municipal tax hikes to 2 percent a year. The previous limit was 4 percent.
Police Chief Gary Giardina said the staff reductions are bound to have a negative impact on safety.
“My responsibility is to put a viable police department out there for the safety of the city and I need numbers to do that,” he said. “I’m deeply worried about the future.”
Down to 147 from 158 officers, the department already had to slash its bicycle patrol unit.
The job cuts will save the city $1.4 million for 2011, said City Manager Al Greco. But more cuts may need to be made to satisfy the cap, he said. The total city budget for 2011 is $108 million, said Greco.
No layoffs will result from the change because each department already is down 10 officers and two lieutenants because of retirements. There will be no new hires in either department to fill the vacancies, said Councilman Joe Kolodziej.
“Considering that most of these positions have been vacant for over a year, we’re not affecting anyone’s job and not affecting services that have been provided,” he said.
The staff reductions weren’t made lightly, said officials, who acknowledged that both the fire and police departments are already running with a lean staff.
But 65 percent of the city budget is salaries, Kolodziej said. The city lost more than $1 million in state aid, said Greco.
As costs rise and state aid shrinks, cities like Clifton need to search for new ways to provide police and fire services, said Councilman Matt Ward.
“We can’t have 550 towns with their own police and fire force,” he said. “Our police are the highest paid in the country. Our property taxes are highest in the country and it’s fueling an exodus of people who can’t afford to stay.”
Mayor James Anzaldi added that the cuts are a necessary evil as the council begins budget discussions. “If we don’t do this now, we will be forced to fill the jobs because of contracts and 20 jobs adds up to a lot of money, when you include health benefits,” he said.
Shared services, pay freezes, a lower-cost employee health plan, and 4 percent benefits contributions from police and fire employees, instead of the current 1.5 percent, were among the remedies the council discussed.
Kolodziej asked the city’s chief financial officer to gauge the savings from such proposals.
“I’m going to have a hard time meeting the minimum standard of service,” said Fire Chief Henry Cholewczynski about the impact of staff cuts. “It’s a big reduction. We’ve been filling the positions with overtime because we need to have a minimum number of people on duty.”
Giardina, the police chief, said that next year as many as 25 officers may be retiring from the police department because of the governor’s new pension and benefits policies. He doesn’t know if they can be replaced.
“There are lot of proposals by the governor that have a lot of people jumping ship,” he said.
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