Looks like for the first time since the county budget process began months ago with threats of a 10% pay cut and reduced library hours and the threatened layoff of s
omewhere around 700 employees, from police officers to park workers, we are quite possibly looking at a really best case scenario where there won’t be any of that.
In fact, we may be looking at no layoffs at all.
But — in another case of what outsiders think is ‘open a drawer and find more money’ — that wasn’t the true yesterday, when Miami-Dade’s biggest employee union Thursday ratified an agreement reached with the administration with the knowledge that 47 positions — mostly from the parks and recreation department — were still possible.
AFSCME President Andy Madtes told Ladra Thursday that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez originally threatened to layoff 300 general employees, which included 50 to 60 civilian police employees.
After commissioners approved the initial budget July 15th without a tax increase, the mayor apparently felt empowered to put the ball in the union leader’s court, so to speak.
“He said ‘I don’t want to fight anymore. I have my budget. Do you want to see 300 people laid off? It’s up to you,'” Madtes quoted the mayor as telling him.
Read related story: Miami-Dade’s big union, Carlos Gimenez reach agreement
But, eventually, and as is his tendency, Gimenez backed down once again.
“Like the budget shortfall that was once at $208 million, the number kept going down and down and down,” Madtes said. It went down from 300 employees on the chopping block to 87. This week, that number went down further to 47. Today, it is zero, Madtes said he learned after his people met with the parks director Thursday.
“As a matter of fact, some of them are getting promoted and getting a step increase,” Madtes said about parks employees.
Um, what?
“I know,” he added, reading my mind.
So, to put it another way, when added to the 400 police jobs saved through other savings in the budget, the total number of layoffs has gone from either, in the worst case scenario, 700 to 47 or, in the best case scenario, from 700 to zero — either of which would be an amazing feat in the private industry — and people are getting raises?
Read related story: Carlos Gimenez scolds police director: ‘Layoffs may not come’
“All these miracles keep happening,” Madtes told Ladra. “We had a lot of anxiety about the restructuring from full time to part time, but first 87 dropped to 47 with no rationale as to why. Nobody could tell us if it was the health care savings. And now we have none.”
Mayor Cry Wolf is really working hard to keep earning his nickname.
Is someone going to tell us that the $15 million saved by providing a new health care option was enough to keep 300 jobs? Wow. Then, the more important question is why didn’t somebody think of that last year?
Or, wait… maybe even more importantly, what else aren’t they thinking of that could save us taxpayer dollars?
Carlos ‘Cry Wolf’ Gimenez’s 700 layoffs fizzles to 47 — or zero added by Ladra on
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