It’s undoubtedly been a very long autumn for the village employees who stand to lose their jobs as a result of 2010 budget cuts.
For weeks the council has deliberated how to shore up the gaping $4.5 million budget shortfall, leaving employees on edge as they await the final vote in December. On the block: 10 full-time and six-part time positions including two police officers, the Department of Counseling and Social Services, and at least one of three full-time positions in the Community Events Dept.
Clearly, whatever pain is being felt in Village Hall has been shouldered by the private sector for the past many months of this deep recession. There are probably few readers who have not experienced a recent job loss, either personally or among friends and family.
Still, it must be agonizing to see the future of your job so publicly debated — and at the cusp of the holiday season. And there also must be a certain discomfiture in being one of seven responsible for wielding the budgetary axe.
“Our job isn’t to put faces with dollar signs,” one village commissioner told the DGreport. While cutting jobs is personally very difficult, “the bottom line is we have to figure out a way to right-size this organization. You can’t put a face with a job because then it becomes personal.”
Separating the face from the job became a little harder at the Nov. 17 council meeting, when Officer Greg Mayyou addressed commissioners during public comments.
A North High School graduate, Mayyou said he was fortunate to follow his dream of becoming a Downers Grove police officer. Employed by the DGPD for two years, “I have enjoyed every second of my job,” Mayyou said, adding that he had moved to town to start his family.
Despite what many residents believe, crime is a problem in Downers Grove, he said. And in tough economic times, it often increases as people resort to criminal activity.
“Not only is elimination of the DARE program proposed, but also the elimination of two sworn officers, reducing the total number of officers from 81 to 79,” Mayyou said.
“I stand before you, officer number 81.”
Moved to town to start his family? Wait, I thought a humble public servant couldn’t afford this town?!?
What a shame. I can’t imagine cutting police officers (especially in lieu of the recent break in’s and many of the ‘interesting’ new renters in the community) while we have a bus service that transports 13 people around town. There called ‘legs’, use them and keep officer 81.
Cut whatever you have to in order to keep the cops! Crime has increased with the current economy and that parking lot crowd in front of the former 7-11 on Main is looking more and more like trouble. Recently at local store where patrons were trying to return something they had taken from the shelf….We need the cops! Please……
Maybe if more Cops retired when offered early retirement then Council would not need to cut the Cops.
The Police need to look in their own mirror and ask each other why…………
its amazing that the buses were never part of the cutting decision….
Buses are the sacred cows!!! They always have been and always will be……….mark my words!
Kelly,
I understand your hesitation on cutting policemen…but village employee salaries and pensions take most of the budget.
Besides, what we’ve seen for crime wasn’t preventable by having more policemen. Policemen arrive afterwards.
The police and fire personnel are going to have to understand that in order to keep their jobs they may have to make concessions in their pensions. Pensions are a huge drag on the budget.
As far as DARE goes why can’t we just do a scaled down version where each school pays a stipend to the police for a school wide assembly. That seems doable. How much could it cost to take a police officer off the street a few times per month and just charge it to the school district. I am sure the PTA’s could help fund raise for it. At least then you have cops in the schools educating our children about drugs and being good citizens.
Of course if you ask Waldack police officers are not good counselors so the DARE program should be cut. I love how Waldack is a self professed expert on counseling services. Gee could it be because he wants those services saved in the budget.
Yes, but if the village is cutting things like meals on wheels and counseling services, who will be doing the increased well being checks? If the village is to install red light cameras or create vehicle stickers or a liquor tax, who will be in charge of enforcement? The police.
And I thought it sucked being number 2 on the upgrade list with only 1 seat available. Thankyou Officer Mayyou for some perspective. While a 2.5% reduction in staff seems a small sacrifice these days, I would hate to lose any cops. They are truly an essential service that we all enjoy. Has the PD put forth any ideas to save money and jobs? If pensions can’t be touched, maybe they can renogotiate their contract. Maybe they could reduce overtime. Any reduction or elimination of festivals and events should lead to some savings as these were always well staffed. Maybe they could create some part-time positions and offer any overtime to the part timers. There has to be some band-aids we can use until the economy improves.
My company paid less in bonus’s last year and kept salarie flat, our contribution to Healthcare went up. This was done inorder to keep layoffs at a minimum. How come the private sector is the only one making across the board sacrifices in its labor force to keep layoffs to a minimum? Why can’t Police and Fire Unions make the same “creative” types of thought process inorder to keep layoffs to a minimum??
$70,000 tax dollars for a high school swimming pool score board, but police staffing is cut. What insanity !
I believe that a strong showing of police is always deters crime in a neighborhood. If people are willing to drive from Berywn or Cicero to break into houses in DG then we need those 2 extra cops. Period. It will only get worse as other crews test the waters to the west.
I spoke briefly to a trusted village source who has assured me that cutting the buses will not save police jobs. The buses are being phased out of the Downers Grove budget by 2011 anyway.
Now I did some research of my own and found some interesting things out. The reason we have 81 officers is partly due to federal government grants for community policing efforts which Clinton helped to pass into law. In 2004 President Bush reduced the amount of federal grants to the community oriented policing initiative citing its lack of overall success in driving down crime statistics. Furthermore the messiah, President Obama has not funded the community oriented policing efforts since the Bush cuts. So who to blame? Our council? Hardlyâ?¦Maybe if the COPS program worked in the first place the government would still deem the grant funding as necessary.
I have a theory on what happened. Its my opinion that some officers were promoted to make room for more beat cops thus pushing up the future pension obligations and current payrole for the police department. Now that the fed funding is gone DG is left with the ball. This is yet another failure of the federal government to run a sucsessful program.
Here is a good link about the downsizing of the COPS program.
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=4961
I have a reliable local source who knows someone who works behind the bar at the Tivoli bowl who knows a guy who has a neighbor who swears that Rahm Emanuel is a late night regular at the King’s Health Spa, and the ghost of Karl Marx is always with him. That’s what I heard.
This is a local issue. When we try and link every motive and situation that happens within these borders to something going on in Washington we just spin the wheels of rhetoric. You can play ’6 degrees of Obama’ with anything from the shortage of pumpkin on store shelves to StillWater closing their doors and I guarantee you’ll find a link. What you won’t find are solutions.
And officer 81 ends up flipping burgers. Local issue, local focus. What can be done?
No way Meat you are way off base. Do your research before posting. The only reason our police department has 81 positions instead of say 74 or 71 like other departments like Elmhurst or Wheaton is because we took advantage of federal grants to add staff. If you want to debate Mr. Meaty bring your facts otherwise keep your sock puppet guns in your pocket!!
‘Mr Meaty’?!?!
Nothing personal. When you approach every issue, every situation, every facet of your life with ‘how is the liberal left to blame for this’ you begin to loose credibility. We get it. You’re conservative. We here you. Your not a big fan of the current administration. Got it. H1N1 vaccine, Softsoap, our police department, all errors by the Obama administration. Yes.
Now, can we focus our attention on Downers Grove?
I posted a link with that featured a brief history of the COPS program. I feel that giving Downers Grove residents some insight into how theses positions where created in the first place might help to show why these jobs are on the chopping block. And yes your boy Obama did not fund these grants with his budget or his stimulus funds. To be fair and balanced if you would read the link it shows that Bush was the first to cut the grants. So once again please come back with some facts or don’t bother posting.
As far as my credibility goes, at least I post with my real name. I don’t hide from anyone. I don’t care if my views are open to the public. At least I have the guts to put myself out there. That is what leaders do Meat, but I guess you wouldn’t know about that.
I know for a fact that there are plenty of readers of this blog who appreciate my perspective.
As someone who regrettably has not tuned into the 7 million hours of LRP and budget meetings, just wondering, Chad: Did the federal grants impact on the size of the PD get discussed? I’m assuming that’s where you got this info?
EJ,
I can’t reveal my sources!
The COPS grants allowed hiring eight rank and file officers. Since then the DGPD has trimmed 4 of those positions, and added two Sergeants and one Lieutenant.
My ‘boy’?
My son is not named Obama, he’s named after his grandfather. Neither ‘Barrack’ nor ‘Obama’ are popular first names in the Sicilian American community.
You make my point for me Chad. You’ve made presumptions about my voting habits based on comments on a locally focused village blog, and your wrong. Whom I may or may not have supported in November has no bearing on my opinions on LOCAL village issues.
If a bear craps in the woods, are the Democrats to blame?
Thanks for the information Mark, this may be the first time you’ve provided a chart I’m grateful for
MT,
Thanks for finding that locally focused chart! That illustrates the point I was trying to make very well.
It’s good to live in this bubble that is Downers Grove, where no outside forces or influences affect our little town!
Now if we could only grow our own food, produce our own electricity, unearth and refine our own fuel, find a viable water source, discover Downers Grove’s vast natural gas recourses and pass our own constitution we would be on our way to being truly locally focused!!
..alas, we can’t.
The vast left wing conspiracy controls all the resources we require to be autonomous, all we can do is fight the good fight against the socialist demons in Washington. Oh, but our time will come, Beck has forseen it. When the moment is right, look toward the television, turn up the volume on Fox News and charge forth swinging your tea bag to scatter the liberals before you!! GAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
I’m so sorry to perpetuate this, I’m just cracking myself up..
Maybe it was just bad timing, but when burglaries spike in the community and your talking about eliminating a police officer (or 2) in order to get under budget, people are going to react. I could care less HOW we came to the number of officers we have in town, I’m only interested in keeping them here. I suspect a great many people feel the same.