Cities Can’t Give In To Protection Racket

August 17, 2010 08:02


City governments nationwide are bleeding red ink, largely due to the salaries and benefits their unionized employees are paid. With high unemployment, falling property values and sinking tax revenues, these salaries and benefits can’t be sustained.

From IBDeditorials

Decisions to lay off or furlough employees, reduce benefits or curtail promised pay raises typically produce highly publicized threats to cut services. Cities and their citizens should consider responding to such threats by laying off even more employees.

Most public employees don’t do anything that can’t be done at lower cost by employees of private firms, from filling out incident-report forms to protecting the public.

Consider the case of Anthony Batts, the police chief of Oakland, Calif. He has announced that his department will no longer respond to citizen calls on 44 criminal and noncriminal matters typically handled by the police, including grand theft, burglary, embezzlement and auto accidents.  This was Chief Batts’ response to Oakland’s decision to lay off 80 police officers.

FULL STORY at IBDeditorials



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