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By a 9-0 vote, the Prince George's County Council approved a measure forcing 5,900 county workers to take two weeks off , unpaid, by June of next year.
The furlough proposal was pushed through by County Executive Jack Johnson in hopes of eliminating a $57 million budget deficit.
More than one hundred union employees flooded the council chambers, frustrated that they had not been given a chance to respond to the measure, which cuts their pay by 80 hours. The union represents 2,000 county employees. Council 67 executive director Glen Middleton is accusing Johnson of "dictatorial" bargaining for not revealing expected surpluses or amounts held in reserve funds.
Vince Canales, Prince George's Fraternal Order of Police president, says the move equates to taking 100 police officers off the street over the course of a year.
"We're totally disgusted. This is shameful on their part. Let them explain to you the mortgage notes that they've gotta pay, the gas bills, the groceries and everything else that they have to deal with."
Johnson blames the housing crisis for the budget deficit, pointing out that foreclosed homes popped up all over Prince George's County in 2008. "So that means a lot of people aren't paying taxes that were paying taxes," said Johnson.
The furloughs will save $20 million. Another $14 million would be cut from the county school budget, whittling the deficit down to $23 million.
County employee Dwayne Moore notes that "one paycheck could be a meal not taken in with your family." Lashawna Moore, a Prince George's resident, said, "Who knows. We would go without I guess."
County officials said they tried to negotiate with labor unions to reduce salary increases instead of forcing the furlough issue. Union officials, meanwhile, say the emergency legislation doesn't give anyone a chance to speak out.
Some in the fire and police departments note that cutting back employees could mean longer response times during emergencies. "If we have to send people home and units are not staffed, it increases response times which puts the public at risk," said Bart Bartholomew of Local Union 1619. "It's a huge impact on the safety of the citizens and potentially our workers, the employees that are risking their lives day in and day out."
The county charter prohibits elected leaders from raising or lowering their own salaries; Johnson says that he would donate the 80 hours' worth of his salary to charity, in solidarity with other county employees.
But it's still enough enough for some. "There's a lot of special projects for Jack and everyone else they haven't looked at any of that yet. We believe it's mismanagement and somebody needs to investigate Jack Johnson, the county executive," said Arthur Emery, Police Civilian Employee Union.
However, if you look, Jack Johnson and the other "executives" get new SUV's every other year, the County pays for their gas and don't mention their raises which are much larger in percentage than those of the other lower-level County government employees who DO all the work and now have to no take of 80 hours unpaid to boot. These people bust their butts in the county just so the likes of JJ and his executive cronies can live large and wear armani suits.
So don't tell me how much JJ and his close flunkies mean to P.G. -- they've raped it just like O'Malley did to Baltimore and is currently doing to the State.
It's a sad state of affairs...
NONE of them are worth the powder and shot to blow them to Kingdom Come ... and i mean both sides of the ticket ... not one over the other.
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