Four Cincinnati City Council members are now formally proposing delaying a $2.5 million payment to Cincinnati Public Schools to save the jobs of over 130 police officers.
The council members were joined for a news conference on the steps of Cincinnati City Hall Thursday by the head of the Cincinnati Police Union, Kathy Harrell, to endorse a plan for saving police jobs.
Council members Chris Bortz, Chris Monzel, Leslie Ghiz, and Jeff Berding said they can keep all those police officers on the city payroll this year by putting off the promised October payment of $2.5 million to a construction fund for city schools.
That payment is about half of what the city promises to the schools, every year, to make up for lost property tax revenues from construction of the two downtown sports stadiums.
The council members say that the delayed payment would be paid back to the schools with interest within three to five years. They say the payment deferral and other budget cutting could keep the Cincinnati Police Department at full strength, until other cuts are considered for next year. The other proposal would be cutting back on garbage collections in the city to one pick-up per week for the rest of the year.
Council member Jeff Berding started the news conference by saying, "City government has no more important job than public safety, and this plan allows us to keep cincinnati police officers on the job for the rest of the year, without laying any of them off and risking public safety."
Council member Leslie Ghiz says, "The officers who have been told they could be laid off next month, are the younger officers, the most energetic officers on the force. They're the ones we most want to preserve." She also pointed out that recent police academy classes have been canceled because of budget cutting.
The Cincinnati Public School administrators have been working with these council members on this proposal for the past couple of days.
The Cincinnati School Board has called an emergency meeting for 4 p.m. Thursday to figure out if the schools can allow the $2 million payment to be delayed.
What may be at issue is whether the school board has to formally approve the payment deferral or whether the city council can vote to delay the payment itself.
The four council members who came up with the plan say they are certain they can convince enough of the other five city council members to get their plan approved. They admitted that more budget cuts will have to be found in next year's budget since the deficit is expected to increase.
Berding and Bortz both say this deferred payment plan will give the council time to find other budget cuts, and possibly work out some concessions from the police union for the 2010 city budget.
