MAYBE SOME HOPE

Alderman, union fight Emanuel plan to reduce police and fire dispatchers 

BY FRAN SPIELMAN

Chicago firefighter-turned-alderman Nick Sposato (36th) and the union representing fire dispatchers maneuvered Monday to kill Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to reduce the ranks of police and fire dispatchers at the city’s 911 emergency center.

Fire and EMS dispatcher Jeff Johnson , union steward for IBEW Local 9, said the mayor’s plan to eliminate the jobs of 17 fire dispatchers, lay off nine others and shrink the supervisory ranks from 13 to 8 could send response times and employee burn-out rates through the roof.

The jobs of 45 police dispatchers would also be eliminated. So would four of 22 radio repair technicians at a time when radio and data frequencies need to be reprogrammed to comply with a Federal Communications Commission mandate.

“We strive to answer every call in under two rings. With these cuts, it’ll go from two seconds to 15 seconds. That’s a very dangerous number,” Johnson said Monday.

“If we have call takers working 16 hours a day, people are gonna get burned out. They’re gonna start making mistakes. It’s gonna put public safety in danger. They’ll end up paying more in overtime and in lawsuits” than they would have in salaries.

Sposato said he doesn’t buy the mayor’s office’s argument that paying overtime to a leaner staff of dispatchers would be “less expensive than having a full-time staff person” who is not needed year-round.

Not when dispatchers are already stretched so thin, some of them are doubling their annual salaries in overtime.

“You’re playing with fire there. You know what happens when you play with fire? You get burned,” Sposato said. “People are furious all the time about being put on hold. We have a lot of problems with 911 services, through no fault of dispatchers. I don’t want to cut dispatchers. I don’t think that’s the place to cut. It would lead to an increase in response times.”

Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) argued that 911 dispatchers “get burned out just like air traffic controllers. And if they make one mistake, it can be deadly.” Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd) called the 911 center “one of the many places not to cut.”

Ald. John Arena (45th) noted that front-line workers have been “cut back to skeleton levels” in tree trimming, street and alley light repairs and he would hate to see similar cuts impact the 911 center.

“A full-time employee with benefits and pension can cost more [than] paying overtime to one employee, but what’s the burn-out rate? That’s an intense job. We have to look at that. I want to know how are we gonna deliver services in a critical area like that when they’re making this many cuts,” Arena said.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday that Emanuel’s plan to lay off more than 500 city employees and eliminate 776 vacancies could impact the 911 center in a way that could slow response times or stretch call takers to the limit.

In an e-mail response to the Chicago Sun-Times, Emanuel’s communications director Chris Mather argued that it was “completely speculative and incorrect” for the union to suggest that layoffs would trigger an increase in response times to 911 calls.

The operations floor has already been operating with vacant positions unfilled and “continues to maintain the highest level of efficiency,” she said.

“Residents can still expect a fast response followed by a quick dispatch of resources,” Mather said, noting that the city has “budgeted for any possible increase in overtime.”

In 2009, more than 60 operators at the 911 center each earned more than $20,000 in overtime pay. One racked up $90,552 in overtime, more than his $77,784 annual salary. 

SOMEONE IN THE MEDIA FINALLY LOOKED AT THE BUDGET

Sun-Times analysis: Who will be hit by Emanuel’s 517 layoffs
BY FRAN SPIELMAN

      Mayor Rahm Emanuel has talked about laying off more than 500 city employees and eliminating 776 vacant jobs, but he has not identified them or explained what city services will suffer.

Now, an analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times and one of the impacted unions shows where the ax will fall — in a way that could slow response time to 911 calls or stretch call takers to the limit, decimate Chicago Public libraries and force dramatic cuts in health and human services.

At the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, where 911 call takers have more than doubled their annual salaries in overtime over the years, the budget calls for 108 layoffs and the elimination of 80 vacancies. Seventy-three of the layoffs are recently fired Loop traffic-control-aides.

The ranks of police dispatchers would be reduced by 45 or 10.3 percent. The number of fire communications operators would drop by 17 or 16.6 percent.

“Management … is saying the wait time for a 911 call will go from one-to-three seconds to ten-to-fifteen seconds, possibly more. This is very disturbing,” said an OEMC employee, who asked to remain anonymous.

Employees have also been told that four of 22 radio repair technicians stand to lose their jobs at a time when radio and data frequencies need to be reprogrammed to comply with a Federal Communications Commission mandate.

“A shortage of techs will cause a delay in abiding by this mandate and also in replacing aging equipment. A failure of the older equipment during an emergency without repair personnel would be catastrophic,” the employee said.

In 2009, more than 60 operators at the 911 center each earned more than $20,000 in overtime pay. One racked up $90,552 in overtime, more than his $77,784 annual salary.

Still, the mayor’s office defended the job cuts, noting that paying overtime “is less expensive than having a full-time staff person” who is not needed year-round.

“Safety remains the top priority, and we will continue to maintain our efficiency,” said Kathleen Strand, a spokeswoman for the city’s Office of Budget and Management.

“We know our historical high volume and peak time and, if we have to provide overtime, it has already been accounted for in the budget.”

As for the FCC deadline, Strand said, “The city is making every effort to meet this mandate and the success of executing an inter-operable communications plan is not directly tied to the number of electrical technicians that will be laid off.”

Emanuel has talked about reducing library hours on Monday and Friday mornings. But, that does not begin to explain the 363 job cuts he has made there.

Sixty librarians, 59 library clerks and all of the remaining “pages” — workers charged with re-shelving books — would be cut.

In 2009, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley laid off 120 library pages, nearly half the complement. When books piled up because there were not enough people to re-stack shelves, Daley was forced to reduce weekday hours to accommodate an “exhausted” and overworked library staff.

Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31, called the Health Department cuts the most devastating of all.

The budget calls for closing six of the city’s 12 mental health clinics, fully funding just two of them and implementing the mayor’s summer plan to have seven city health clinics partner with federally-qualified health centers.

Nearly 200 grant-funded positions would also be cut from the Department of Family and Support Services. The targeted workers serve Chicago’s most vulnerable residents, including domestic violence victims, the elderly, homeless and at-risk youth.

“If you presented this budget to [Republican House Speaker] John Boehner in Congress, he’d pass it in a minute. I hope the City Council won’t,” Bayer said.

“The mayor is cutting into basic services and laying off hundreds of front-line employees who provide those vital services. ... I can only conclude he’s not concerned about providing vital services to people in communities. His total focus seems to be on the business community.”

Strand insisted that the city was “reinvesting $500,000 in enhanced psychiatry services and care coordination” in the consolidated mental health clinics. That’s a move she claimed would provide “improved service at a lower cost.”

“The city will maintain services for those most in need — uninsured patients — but provide the services in a more cost-effective manner. The city will actually be able to increase services provided and save $3 million,” she said, noting that all 3,000 uninsured patients would continue to be served by the city.

As for cuts in the Department of Family and Support Services, Strand noted that the grant-funded positions were eliminated “in direct response to funding cuts that took place earlier this year” at the state and federal levels.