Yonkers Budget Cuts

[Oswegowind 17]

Yonkers to make budget cuts as finances worsen

Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone next week is expected to announce cuts in the city's current-year budget due to steep decreases in tax revenue and prospects for reduced state aid.

Full story at lohud.com

And there is nothing on the City's OFFICIAL website, go figure! But they added the GIS maps for the public to use but we still cannot access them in the police dispatch center...amazing!

cityofyonkers.com

[ex-commish 490]

Full story at lohud.com

And there is nothing on the City's OFFICIAL website, go figure! But they added the GIS maps for the public to use but we still cannot access them in the police dispatch center...amazing!

cityofyonkers.com

Some of the blogs in Lo-Hud are attacking civil service unions. Hang on to your hats...this is only the begining.

[lad12derff 283]

Some of the blogs in Lo-Hud are attacking civil service unions. Hang on to your hats...this is only the begining.

Nobody wanted our jobs for the last 6 years while every crook on wall street was raping America. For $25.00 and a lucky Saturday they could have worked weekends, holidays( except Ramapo PD ) nights, my kids birthday and yours also. It makes me sick to my stomach when people start to complain about us when the hard times are here. Well line up and take the test and you too can join the ranks.

Edited November 9, 2008 by lad12derff

[KCRD 6]

Nobody wanted our jobs for the last 6 years while every crook on wall street was raping America. For $25.00 and a lucky Saturday they could have worked weekends, holidays( except Ramapo PD ) nights, my kids birthday and yours also. It makes me sick to my stomach when people start to complain about us when the hard times are here. Well line up and take the test and you to can join the ranks.

Thank you for that reply. Couldn't have said it any better.

[ex-commish 490]

Nobody wanted our jobs for the last 6 years while every crook on wall street was raping America. For $25.00 and a lucky Saturday they could have worked weekends, holidays( except Ramapo PD ) nights, my kids birthday and yours also. It makes me sick to my stomach when people start to complain about us when the hard times are here. Well line up and take the test and you too can join the ranks.

Very true

[dadbo46 50]

Nobody wanted our jobs for the last 6 years while every crook on wall street was raping America. For $25.00 and a lucky Saturday they could have worked weekends, holidays( except Ramapo PD ) nights, my kids birthday and yours also. It makes me sick to my stomach when people start to complain about us when the hard times are here. Well line up and take the test and you too can join the ranks.

Amen !

Put in an application, take the test ! Stop the wining.

[IzzyEng4 427]

Its the sign of the times plain and simple. Look at what is happening with FDNY, Philly, heck even here at my work we are not filling positions that are open. Everyone is going to be feeling the strain. We still haven't hit the bottom yet in the financial world. More towns / city's are going to be putting everyone under the gun.

[FFPCogs 863]

Yeah, there's a good chance the unemployment lines are going to be getting longer before they shrink. It sucks but civil servants aren't immune from the axe when the well dries up. To the average Joe who doesn't think they'll ever need the PD or FD it's just fine with them if guys lose out, and for alot too if they get cut why shouldn't you..after all misery loves company.

"Clink" Here's to better days sooner than later

Cogs

[Truck4 48]

The Mayor will be announcing his cuts tomorrow, reportedly 5% across the board for fiscal year 2008/09 which runs through June 2009.

YPD will be cutting some specialized details/units, including School Resource Officers (cops in the schools) and some Street Crime Unit officers. The talk is that the department will be reassigning 48 cops back into uniform patrol to eliminate scheduled OT. Promotions scheduled for this week were canceled indefinitely.

[RWC130 594]

Nobody wanted our jobs for the last 6 years while every crook on wall street was raping America. For $25.00 and a lucky Saturday they could have worked weekends, holidays( except Ramapo PD ) nights, my kids birthday and yours also. It makes me sick to my stomach when people start to complain about us when the hard times are here. Well line up and take the test and you too can join the ranks.

AMEN BROTHER!

Hearing "Budget Cuts" it amazes me when you hear

essential services such as Police and Fire on the chopping block.

Criminals don't cut back, Fires don't go out.

Crime gets worse and Fires burn.

YPD will be cutting some specialized details/units, including School Resource Officers (cops in the schools) and some Street Crime Unit officers. The talk is that the department will be reassigning 48 cops back into uniform patrol to eliminate scheduled OT. Promotions scheduled for this week were canceled indefinitely.

Street Crime officers? Oh that's great!

Yonkers is crime free?

I don't see any mention of cuts to the Mayor's Security Detail?

Yonkers has been in the RED with money for a long time.

Mayor just realized this?

Make some cuts to non-essential services!

[mstrang1 213]

Kinda confused here... Three posts away on this website is a listing for bids for 3 engines and 2 ladders. How are they paying for that and not for anything else?

[fac911 33]

I guess they are not going to put anyone in the Jan. police Academy either :angry:

[helicopper 1,050]

Kinda confused here... Three posts away on this website is a listing for bids for 3 engines and 2 ladders. How are they paying for that and not for anything else?

Vehicle purchases are usually a capital project and come from a different budget funded by bonds, not directly by the tax levy. Might be just semantics, but it is a different source of funding and part of a long-term capital budget process not the year to year operating one.

Sure might be an issue of they don't have the people to staff the new vehicles, though.

This is only one example of the belt tightening going on across the country and I agree wholeheartedly with those who think this is only the beginning!!!!

[Guest TOYBUFF911]

Those are probably from the capital budget from last year.

[jack10562 414]

Promotions scheduled for this week were canceled indefinitely.

THAT's gotta do wonders for department morale...

Work hard, study, and POW ...get smacked in the kisser.

[mstrang1 213]

I figured that it would be through bonds, I am familiar with the process, I was just trying to make a point of what the public may think. I guess my sarcasm didn't come through.

[Truck4 48]

Mayor plans to lay off hundreds of city workers-

http://www.lohud.com/article/20081112/NEWS02/811120417

-Hiring freeze

-No Police or Fire academy classes in '09

-Mayor wants to renegotiate contracts

[SgtGumby311 0]

It seems to me like we're going backwards, sounds like the 70's in NYC all over again......Maybe it would be cheaper just to put up a fence around Yonkers. Good luck to all the P.O.'s and FF's, you're gonna need it.

[Guest alsfirefighter]

I feel for the brothers in YFD and YPD. They are the last that should be cut, but in current times no one is safe and in some ways everyone has to do their part. As far as them being in the red every year, it always seemed that way to me and always had their hands out looking for state assistance and then would be up in arms when the state wasn't going to give them what they expected every year. I guess the bottom was going to fall out eventually and the state isn't in the position to help bail anyone out either. Hang on to your hats lads...its going to be a bumpy ride. I'm actually shocked in some ways that many urban areas haven't seen an increase in arson jobs already.

[Guest]

I feel for the brothers in YFD and YPD. They are the last that should be cut, but in current times no one is safe and in some ways everyone has to do their part. As far as them being in the red every year, it always seemed that way to me and always had their hands out looking for state assistance and then would be up in arms when the state wasn't going to give them what they expected every year. I guess the bottom was going to fall out eventually and the state isn't in the position to help bail anyone out either. Hang on to your hats lads...its going to be a bumpy ride. I'm actually shocked in some ways that many urban areas haven't seen an increase in arson jobs already.

Not just arson jobs but what about the home heating pros who try to cut back on expensive heating oil and propane with make it your self heating devices. It May be busy winter all around!!!!

[Bababoosky 24]

This is probably in part due to the fact that the price of home heating oil has plummeted since the stock market crapped the bed. As it gets colder though, I agree with ALS, lower westchester is going to be burning down.

[Guest TOYBUFF911]

In a city that is already understaffed and always doing more with less with reguards to the police force, situations like these budget cuts affect everything in modern policing. The lives and safety of the citizens and especially officer safety and morale.

With the constant media frenzy and attacks on police, anything police related, even good incidents get turned into a negative campain to sell newspapers. These negative events targeting the members of the police force and it is demoralizing to the men and women who proudly serve the city every day. The complaints about police overtime that have circulated over many years is a direct response to doing more with less. One plan was the city was going to hire more officers and boost the departments rank and file too lower overtime. But yet it is time to do even more with even less. More buildings, Yonkers Raceway, waterfront development, ridge hill, cross county etc. etc., but cut essential services.

Exceeded overtime budget = doing more with less. Officers don't risk there lives and sacrifice more time away from there families for the city not too compensate them.

I feel for police administrators, they have been trying to modernize the department and deploy new tactics and new crime reduction techniques for several years now. It seems everything they have done has the potential to go down the drain.

[Truck4 48]

Philadelphia is facing an $8 Million shortfall, compared to the $16 claimed by Yonkers and is closing 5 Engines and 2 Ladders. There are NO layoffs, no station closings and no demotions. No talk of give-backs yet either. They also made sure to mention that structural fires were down 60% since 1990 and EMS runs are up 96% during the same period.

Philly is also closing 1 Police Station, eliminating the DARE program and several hundred unfilled positions in the department.

http://phillyfirenews.com/Gm08-135.pdf

[dadbo46 50]

Philadelphia is facing an $8 Million shortfall, compared to the $16 claimed by Yonkers and is closing 5 Engines and 2 Ladders. There are NO layoffs, no station closings and no demotions. No talk of give-backs yet either. They also made sure to mention that structural fires were down 60% since 1990 and EMS runs are up 96% during the same period.

Philly is also closing 1 Police Station, eliminating the DARE program and several hundred unfilled positions in the department.

http://phillyfirenews.com/Gm08-135.pdf

The linked memo was superbly written. It laid out the problem, identified objectives, offered solutions, announced the implementation and then justified it.

It's a shame when houses are closed and companies disbanded, but it appears that the Philadelphi FD did their homework.