L.A. city unions push retirement incentives over layoffs
Six employee unions ask Villaraigosa to consider offering early retirements to longtime workers instead of cutting 767 jobs to balance next year's budget.
Six Los Angeles city employee unions have asked Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to offer early retirement to thousands of senior city workers, saying such a program could save $177 million annually and avert layoffs over the next year.
With Villaraigosa looking to pare 767 jobs to balance the budget for next year, the Coalition of L.A. Unions circulated a counterproposal that recommends giving financial incentives to as many as 6,000 of the city's oldest, most highly paid workers.
Under the proposal, eligible employees who agree to leave would receive up to five more years toward their retirement calculation -- giving them better pension benefits and a reason to leave right away, said Barbara Maynard, a spokeswoman for the coalition.
Maynard said the move would also allow the mayor to stabilize the budget, which calls for a range of cuts designed to preserve his plan for hiring 1,000 police officers.
"Allowing city employees to retire early will allow the city to save critical services like library hours, after-school recreation programs and animal care in the city shelters," said Maynard, whose group represents 22,000 workers.
Maynard discussed the proposal hours before the City Council's Budget and Finance Committee was scheduled to go behind closed doors this afternoon to discuss Villaraigosa's plan for reducing hundreds of jobs and forcing most remaining employees to take six unpaid days off. The furloughs would not apply to police officers, firefighters or most sanitation workers.
Villaraigosa spokesman Matt Szabo said his boss had not made any commitment to the proposal. But he said the mayor is encouraged to see the six employee unions searching for alternatives to budget cuts.
"If there are other proposals that would achieve the same amount of savings in real dollars, the mayor would be willing to consider them," he said.
The union began circulating its proposal Thursday afternoon, just as council members received complaints about the mayor's plan to cut Sunday library hours, reduce animal shelter hours, slash park maintenance and eliminate Channel 36, a city-owned television station that offers high school sports coverage and other programming.
Although the union initially said the retirement proposal could save $190 million, it downgraded that figure to $177 million this afternoon.
