Can Layoffs Avert Tax Hike in Northampton or Lehigh County?

Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.

That's a knee-jerk reaction many in in both counties take when a tax hike looms. Guess what? The only place where cuts can really be made is in personnel. Layoffs. From what I've seen firsthand in Northampton County, that's a disaster. When former exec Reibman did it a few years ago, he ended up ruining morale, and drove the workforce into the arms of 11 different unions.

In his budget message at Northampton Community College last week, Northampton County Executive John Stoffa flatly stated why layoffs would be ineffective.

"Salaries and fringes make up almost 70% of General Fund expenditures. Some have suggested that spending be reduced by $7 million by laying off employees - as many as 200. Were we to do this, we would have to continue paying unemployment benefits for at least a year following their lay-off. Since we are self-insured, we must pay the total cost of unemployment compensation. If our employees were eligible for the the current maximum unemployment benefit of $558.00 per week or $29,000 per year, laying off 200 employees would still annually cost us $5.8 million in unemployment. It is not the solution it first appears to be while services to the public would suffer dramatically."

But at the Pen Argyl Concerned Citizens debate, Ron Angle still asked candidates about reducing the workforce. "The only meaningful way to deal with that 9.3% tax increase would be a 10% cut in employees. My specific question to all of you - if two people were to put that on the floor, how would you vote, simple yes or no?" (You can see the video here).

Tom Dietrich: "We had a wage study that was done ..."

Angle: "A simple yes or no ... "

Moderator: "Ron, Ron, I'm giving thirty second response time per question."

Dietrich: "We had a wage study. What we will see is some employees are getting paid much higher than private industry. When I was in the union, we referred to those people as fat cats and a lot of time the lower management positions have been elevated to a position where they weren't really overseeing anything other than their own time.

"I could see very much a wage cut. I'd love to see people - not necessarily lose their jobs - but I would love to see our wages in certain county positions being adjust to reflect the ... "

Angle: "Most are under contract. You can't change their pay, you can merely eliminate their position. How would you vote? I didn't get an answer."

Dietrich: "I just said I would reduce their wages to reflect the private industry. And if they can't be adjustable like that, we shouldn't be adjustable. We should move forward to possibly eliminating people that are very much adamant that they just plant themselves ... ."

Barb Thierry: "Yes."

Angle: "Thank you very much."

Gilbert: "Yes."

Angle: "Thank you very much."

Charles Dertinger: "Almost unequivocally not, no. We have - I don't know who you would fire. The people who are in the prison? The people who are providing services that come from the state monies? The vast majority of our budget are pass through monies. They're not taxpayer money from real estate taxes in Northampton County.

"We have services that we are required to meet. We have unfunded mandates that we have to do, and these positions need to be filled."

Lorraine Pasquale: "I would vote no."

Bill Wallace: "Let's look at this real simple. We're in a downturn in our economy. We're going down, down, hopefully at the bottom coming back up again. Everybody talks about cutting services when we're at the bottom. When we were going up and things were great - ten, fifteen years ago - did anybody say 'Hey, let's increase services or let's pay 'em a little bit more?' No. They had a contract, and like Ron said, it was standard. We gotta' get through this bottom time, we gotta' keep our services because some of those people are over-worked.

It's the same in the school districts. You sign a contract when times are good and you're getting 3, 5, 8 per cent, when times are rough, it's more difficult.

John Cusick: "There's certain things that we simply cannot cut. We can't let prison guards go, we can't fire nurses at our nursing home, so there are services we have to provide to the courts, human services, Children & Youth. So there are things we're going to have to look at in totality as we go through this budget."

Walter Garvin: "The citizens of Northampton County expect their tax dollars to be expended prudently, just like you do in your household. So again, you can't fire prison guards unless you have a decrease of population in the prison. the same thing with ... there are certain things that can't be fired.

"Now the Hay Study Group said some of the employees in Northampton County were underpaid. I say at this time, they should not get any additional money because we don't have it to give."

"It's an individual case basis, Ron."

Deb Hunter: "I would vote no and here's why. I think there are other places where you can find that money. That rainy day fund? You can't tap that fund forever, I understand that, because you want to keep your bond ratings up and have to keep your vision going. I would not do because you are committed and also, the administration that I think you so much admire and the cabinet and that sort of thing. You have to have a certain amount of trust. The Council has a responsibility to quiz them, to ask the hard questions, and are they asking the hard questions?

If they have not come up with that recommendation, then there's a certain level of trust that you have to put in that, and then you have to demand, well, you have to cut it somewhere else.

I don't like a tax increase any more than anybody else, but I wouldn't cut the employees."

Peg Ferraro: [Unfortunately, I cut Peg off and apologize to her. But she was no enthusiast for layoffs.]