Police and Fire Services Commonly Placed on Budget Chopping Blocks

By Carlet Cleare

Rochester, NY – Municipalities across the state are looking at public safety expenses as they seek to cut costs to balance budgets.

Peter Baynes, Executive Director of the New York State Conference of Mayors, says New York's fiscal crisis is forcing cities and towns to trim their budgets as much as possible.

"When you are at a point when pension costs are going up anywhere from 30- to 60-percent each year, health insurance costs are going up double-digit every year, now the governor is threatening to withhold state aid." says Baynes, "That's an equation that leads to only one result. A city has to look at the largest cost drivers of their budget."

Baynes says the average city uses 30- to 40-percent of its budget on public safety.
Police and firefighters also have the most expensive pension plans.

The number of full-time firefighters in the city of Canandaigua will drop by eight in the summer. Volunteer fighters will replace four of them. The cuts are expected to save the city roughly $500,000 of newly adopted $20-million budget.

The Canandaigua Firefighters Local 2098 filed a charge with the Public Employees Relation Board, which deals with municipalities and unions, for improper practices last week.