Gary mayor says consolidating employees could mean more money for raises

Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson appeared Tueday before the Common Council's finance committee, where she discussed the combination of general services, parks, recycling and vehicle maintenance employees into one entity.

She also talked about how she'd like to see the city's police officers and firefighters combined into one entity of public safety officers who would be capable of doing both police and fire-related work.

"It would improve the service the city provides to the public, while also creating opportunities for those workers to advance more than they have now," the mayor said, adding she has no intention to lay off any city workers during the upcoming year. "This is about utilizing people in a different way."

Finance Chairwoman Mary Brown and council Vice President Ronald Brewer both said they support changes Freeman-Wilson proposed for the 2016 budget that the Common Council is expected to approve by Nov. 1.

Insofar as when these changes would be implemented, Freeman-Wilson said the mergers likely would have to wait until March or April 2016 – even though the city's fiscal year begins Jan. 1. Officials with the labor unions that represent municipal and public safety employees all say they expect the issue to be negotiated in coming months.

The mayor said she was inspired by officials in Benton Harbor, Mich., who have combined their police and fire departments into a public safety agency, and also with Schererville where municipal officials have experimented with some combined efforts.

With regards to the four non-public safety agencies, Freeman-Wilson said she thinks putting all the current employees into one department that would be responsible for all the duties would be efficient. It would increase the city's employee ranks without actually having to hire new people.

The mayor said current employees would wind up learning new skills so they could handle the job tasks that currently are in other city departments. "It could be an opportunity to provide more pay" for city workers, she said.

Added duties could make them more qualified for jobs that would pay them higher salaries, which Gary might be able to afford to pay their workers if the efficiencies of combining the departments provides financial savings.

The mayor would not say exactly how big such pay raises could be for municipal workers.

Although with regard to law enforcement and fire department personnel, she hinted that people capable of doing duties in both departments could receive salaries just over $50,000 – up from the roughly $48,000 that patrolmen and firefighters are to receive by 2017.

Insofar as public safety workers are concerned, the mayor said she wants to combine police and fire department personnel so that some people do work for both agencies – which she sees as a benefit because both entities are staffed significantly less now than they were in the past.

While acknowledging there are differences between police and fire duties, Freeman-Wilson said she could see where police officers could be trained to help with some emergency medical technician tasks and also could handle certain duties to control the perimeter of fire scenes that the Fire Department now has to do.

"We would have to cross-train some people," the mayor said.

Gary Firefighters Association President Jansen Rollins and Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 61 President Samuel Abegg both were skeptical that such a change could be implemented in Gary, with Rollins saying veteran police officers and firefighters would likely resist the change.

"People who become a cop do so because they want to do a certain job, not deal with fires," he said. "Maybe if this were implemented with future hires, it could be phased in. But that would take a long time to do."

Abegg, in an e-mail message to the Post-Tribune, agreed, writing, "It will be very difficult to morph the current roster into a combined force."

Abegg also wrote he expects officers to continue to be assigned to one department or the other – even if they have combined duties.

"If you were hired as a police officer, then about 90 percent of your duties would be that. The other 10 percent would be spent most likely in a supportive capacity to the fire department. And vice versa," Abegg wrote.