Earlier this week Mayor Domenic J. Sarno called for wage freezes and furloughs in an attempt to offset a budget deficit of $5.4 million in Springfield.
The mayor’s plan to offset the budget deficit has been met with resistance from city unions but most unions have responded with caution. As part of Mayor Sarno’s proposal, the salary of all 1,500 municipal workers would be frozen and one furlough day each month imposed in order to prevent major layoffs of city workers from taking place.
City councilor Timothy J. Rooke suggested that the wage freezes and furloughs may have been avoided had Springfield city officials used more fiscal discipline during the past year.
Although the mayor’s proposal has been met with opposition, this would not be the first time Springfield has been faced with a very real possibility of laying off city employees.
In 2009, just a year after Sarno was elected mayor, a total of 89 municipal workers were laid off as a result of a reduction of nearly $5 million in state aid. About half of the workers that were laid off worked for the Department of Public Works with an additional 67 vacant positions left unfilled.
In 2003 Mayor Michael J. Albano proposed a similar plan in order to balance the city’s budget. In February of that year officials announced the layoffs of 76 police officers and 12 school nurses and predicted more layoffs to come.
By June 2003 there had already been about 300 layoff notices sent out to city employees.
Looking back even further in The Republican archives reveals that layoffs due to a tightened budget is far from new for city workers in Springfield. In 1989, during the beginning of Mary Hurley’s mayoral term, Springfield was in a financial crisis which threatened the jobs of 767 municipal employees. Layoffs would have severely affected police and fire departments and would have reduced the city workforce by about 21 percent.
Eventually Springfield residents rejected a $10 million override proposal which Hurley suggested would ease the financial crisis and in June 1989 more than 800 municipal workers received layoff notices.
With warnings of the potential layoff of many of Springfield’s city workers, it seems as if history is simply repeating itself. City councilors have suggested that the 2011 budget deficit is a result of bad decisions which cost the city about $14 million in revenue.