Chesterfield Board Turns Down New Layoff Proposal

A Chesterfield Township board majority turned down a work group study proposal Monday night for limited police layoffs.

The proposal, which resulted in weeks of collaboration among citizens and community officials, called for five departmental layoffs as opposed to 15 originally deemed necessary by Supervisor Michael Lovelock. 

The five eliminated positions—three from dispatch and two from clerical—would have been filled by shifting staff.

"We would be moving officers from the detective unit into patrol and taking some patrol officers into dispatch," Clerk Cindy Berry said. "So, the dispatch would be fully staffed and patrol would be fully staffed."

Citing insufficient time to review the plan or flaws with the proposal, four members of the board turned it down. There's still about a month left in the police layoff moratorium to reach a solution.

“I thought they came up with a great solution," Berry said. "The citizens could not have let us know in a more direct way what they want us to do with their tax dollars. Essentially, what the board voted to do was slap them in the face and say 'No, we’re going to do what we want to do.'”

The work group determined that, although there's an anticipated $1.9-million shortfall in the police fund, there's $232,000 more in the balance than expected. That would have helped with the estimated $700,000 in savings by laying off five employees and shifting staff, she said.

It was also suggested that some general fund money be used for offsetting the police balance deficit.

Trustee Linda Hartman commended the work group for its efforts, but said the proposal didn't address financial concerns beyond 2013.

"It didn’t make any sense to me to approve a proposal for such a limited amount of time," Hartman said. "I don’t think they looked at long term.

"Another thing I had a problem with was loaning money from the general fund.”

Berry, Trustee David Joseph and Trustee Hank Anderson favored the work group proposal while Lovelock, Hartman, Trustee Christine Bell and Trustee Brian (Scott) DeMuynck turned it down.

No alternative proposals have been officially made at this time, although another tax increase proposal hasn't been ruled out. Lovelock was not available to comment Tuesday on the issue.

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