Westfield

Council approves funding police, fire raises

WESTFIELD – The City Council voted unanimously to approve the transfer of $457,299.23 from free cash to various departments “in accordance with recently executed labor contracts for FY 2012 and Fy2013” as requested by Mayor Daniel M. Knapik.
The unanimous vote belies the discord over the use of free cash to pay salaries.
Free cash is money from the previous fiscal year that was unencumbered when the current 2013 fiscal year began on July 1, 2012. Those funds are not available to the city until the state Department of Revenue certifies that all FY 2012 debt is satisfied.
Ward 5 Councilor Richard E. Onofrey Jr., chairman of the Finance Committee, said that while he supported the new contracts for police, firefighters, school crossing guards, and emergency dispatchers, he objected to funding those contracts with free cash allocations.
“I objected to using one-time funds to pay on-going expenses,” Onofrey said. “The mayor did give other bargaining units retroactive 1 percent increases and has carried that to these units, which is fair.”
At-large Councilor Brent B. Bean II said that he “has voted in the past against using free cash for recurring costs.”
“But I’m glad we have free cash to do these things,” Bean said. “Our community is a safe community because of our police officers and firefighters. It’s a well deserved raise. This is one of those times that we should use one-time money.”
At-large Councilor James R. Adams said “this needs to happen. It is unfortunate that these negotiations were not done in time to be submitted to us as part of the 2013 fiscal year budget. I don’t know why this retroactive agreement is such a big deal.  We’ve done that for a lot of other (bargaining) units.”
Onofrey said that if the units had settled their contracts by the May 1, 2012 deadline set by Knapik “we would not be having this discussion because these numbers would have been included in the (current fiscal year) budget.”
At-large Councilor David A. Flaherty said that while he believes that the city’s police officers and firefighters “deserve the same raises as other units, but where does the money come from in the next budget? I’m nervous about that.”
At-large Councilor John J. Beltrandi III said the problem is that it is so late in the current fiscal years that there is no other funding source available, no money available in other accounts that could be transferred.
“If we don’t use free cash, where do these funds come from?” Beltrandi said, adding that the units could request state intervention and be awarded raises that “could be substantially higher.”

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