April 3, 2009
More Savings in Cranston?
There was one bit of news that emerged from last night's Cranston City Council meeting on FY2010 budget. Speaking during the public comment section, Cranston firefighters union President Paul Valletta stated that his union has a deal on the table with Mayor Allan Fung's administration that involves $350,000 in concessions for this fiscal year and a total of $3.8 million in concessions over 28 months.
Hopefully, $3.8 million will be a big enough number for the Council to consider "substantial".
Mr. Valletta's remarks on the potential savings, and his exchange with City Council President John Lanni, can be heard here.
I attended and spoke at the hearing last night. You cannot believe the statements from the firefighters union that were said with pride. The fact of the matter we are held hostage by outrageous contracts. Mr Valletta made it very clear that the cost of laying off 9 firefighter in the short term would be over 500,000.00 versus the 120,000.00 in salary cost savings due to the mandates in the CBA. This is a perfect example that each municipality should remove any baselines while negotiating new CBA's.
Ridiculous.
Posted by: Sean Gately at April 3, 2009 10:17 AMSean,
I'll be putting up your comment, Mr. Valletta's entire comment, and most of the other public speakers' comments up sometime over the weekend.
All other issues aside, if that $3.8 million number is for real, that seems like a significant breakthrough.
(And I'm not sure why the City Council President thought it was appropriate to call you back to the podium and ask you if you had run for office after your statement.)
Andrew,
It's simple why Lanni called Sean back. Games. He had to let the "public" know that because Sean is a Republican that his thoughts should be ignored.
These guys are too busy jockying for position for 2010 to look out fot the taxpayers.
Posted by: Jim Quinlan at April 4, 2009 4:32 PM