The Tacoma City Council will direct the city manager to make layoffs to balance the budget

As the city of Tacoma works to get its $24 million budget deficit under control, council members have been making decisions about what to cut. At Tuesday’s council meeting, those elected considered two amendments.

The first amendment was introduced by Councilmember Jamika Scott, who worked with Councilmember Joe Bushnell to find a way to protect the city’s cash reserves. The original proposed budget would have used the city’s reserve of over $8 million to make up the deficit. The city can use this money to pay overtime for police and firefighters, fund shelter accommodations and cover other urgent costs.

“If we take the step to close this gap now, we can avoid having to make deeper cuts later,” Scott said.

The amendment directs the city manager to make a first round of cuts totaling $5.6 million to put into the reserve. These cuts will affect staffing and city programs and will result in over 25 city positions being eliminated. The change means the council will decide on the next round of cuts in the new year.

Layoff notifications are expected to begin in January.

The council members who supported this amendment spoke about the uncertainty of funding, which led them to feel the need to protect this city’s cash reserve. Council member Kiara Daniels raised the possibility that the city will have to close 300 shelter beds if the city cannot receive grants or other funding totaling $9 million midway through the budget cycle.

“If we don’t have that 8.9 million to be flexible by the middle of the budget cycle, we end up with no choice about what to do,” Daniels said.

Not all council members were happy with this change, as it still did not provide additional funding for the Tacoma Fire Department.

Firefighters, union leaders and community members have spoken out against the city’s proposed budget, which would funnel $4 million from the department back into the general fund to try to make up the deficit. This money was a one-time infusion of EMS funds to fill 16 rover positions; Firefighters who swim to fill positions when other firefighters cannot work. According to the International Association of Firefighters Local 31, the union that represents Tacoma firefighters, the department has used this staffing model to reduce overtime, which is both costly and dangerous for firefighters.

Although the proposed budget does not fund the 16 Rover positions, no firefighter will lose their job. Instead, they are assigned to specific shifts.

Deputy Mayor John Hines introduced a second amendment at Tuesday’s meeting to fund this program and support the department.

“They’re making hundreds more calls than they should, and that’s putting a strain on everyone involved,” Hines said. “I think this program, if we support it, can support both the fire department and our firefighters who do the work, and will support our community that depends on them and continues to call 911 for assistance.”

However, City Council debate during the meeting determined that if both amendments were passed, the city would have to make cuts totaling over $14 million, a figure that the majority of the City Council would not be comfortable moving forward with.

“Today, this is the amendment I thought I would support,” Councilman Sandesh Sadalge said of the fire amendment. “At this point, I will not be voting for it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t support looking at the safety of the community as a whole.”

Tacoma firefighters started an online petition to ask the City Council to fund the rover positions.

Firefighters are disappointed not only by the reduction in rover positions, which they say will impact service and response times in the city, but also by the continued lack of funding for other critical areas of the department, such as: B. new equipment and facilities.

Response times in the city are already, on average, slower than the industry standard. The Tacoma Fire Department’s Standards of Cover study found that no station met the four-minute travel time goal, with most averaging more than seven minutes.

At a press conference this week, Tacoma firefighter Ryan Pregent recounted an experience in which his crew was dispatched to a vehicle fire outside of their coverage area because the other four closest units were busy with other operations.

When they arrived on scene, the fire had already spread to another vehicle. Then the pump didn’t work. Pregent had to operate it manually to put out the fire.

“It is demoralizing to see the look on the faces of the people we are sworn to serve when we finally show up and our equipment doesn’t work or breaks at the moment they need it most,” Pregent said.

Jared Faker is president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 23, which represents over 2,000 workers in and around the Port of Tacoma. He said that with the loss of rover positions there could be “brownouts,” meaning stations could be out of service if staffing levels are too low. This worries him and his employees, who rely on quick reactions from Station 5.

“If there is an accident or incident at the port, response times are a matter of life and death,” Faker said. “A return to those days is unacceptable for workers at the Port of Tacoma.”

At the press conference, Allyson Hinzman, president of IAFF Local 31, reiterated that the department would leave the city and instead create its own taxing district or regional fire authority that would allow it to collect its own funds. She said the union wants to have discussions with the city about this.

Hinzman said the department operates with the same number of employees and equipment as it did in 1955. But they now serve Fife and Fircrest in addition to Tacoma and the port. Three new fire engines ordered in 2023 will only replace existing older engines and will not add new ones to the department.