The Buffalo News reported today that the council is negotiating with the Hickory Club PBA over compensation for taking on the responsibility of dispatching fire calls. I posted a while back that I was suspicious of entities clamoring for the responsibility while claiming willingness to do it at no additional cost. I thought the county would be the more likely culprit and that the timeline would have been longer for a surprise “bill”. It seems like we are on that path anyways with our own entity the LPD.
From an old Buffalo News Article:
“Police Chief Lawrence M. Eggert urged the Common Council last week to turn Fire Department dispatching duties over to the Police Department.
For you to hand it to us now would be extremely simple. We could do it tomorrow,” Eggert said Wednesday. “I’m kind of hoping you give it to us. It’s easy. . . . We could do it for no cost.”I'm curious what compensation will be equal to "no-cost".
7 comments:
MJ - how about a blurb about King Tucker negotiating with the Hickory Club over dispatch duties WHY? Are they going to work any extra hours over the 8 hours a day they get paid for? Once again, in the real world everyone gets told to do more work for the same or less pay, in the public world if you add more duties they expect more pay, even if it doesn't take more time.
Maybe the county should do both police and fire dispatch for us, then they could lay off a couple of policeman instead of forcing us to pay more money.
OKAY ALDERMAN SMITH, DURING THE SCHOOL BUDGET DISCUSSION YOU SAID EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE LOOKED AT SO TAXES DON'T RISE, I HOPE YOU WON'T SUPPORT PAYING SOMEONE MORE MONEY FOR EXTRA WORK (NOT EXTRA HOURS).
Yes, I think we should take the county up on the offer then turn around and layoff the police dispatchers, saving money.
Thats ridiculous, Tucker better not pay anyone extra money for just doing more work during their shift.
8 hours work for 8 hours pay, if they haven't been putting in 8 hours work we need to look at that, or look at Eggerts management style maybe.
No negotiations, just do the dang job!
Unbelieveable! You had to know it would just be a matter of time before the police department would be asking for compensation for the dispatch service. You would think that after the Union got their "sweet" deal passed in December by the Council they would be happy for a while. It never ceases to amaze me! How much more is this going to cost us? I agree send the work to the county!
Tell the police department to go out and fine the jay walkers that refuse to use our sidewalks, catch some more of the drug dealers in the city, and set up some barricades and do random checks on vehicles and licenses. Maybe they can make some extra money that way!!!
Is it me, or does the above 4 comments sound like the same person, 4 times?
And yes, it's rather scummy to offer to do it for free, and then turn around and expect something new in return. But as the dispatcher runs the walk-up window, (at least to the best of my knowledge they do), getting rid of the position would be rather short-sighted.
Rocketboy- I don't know if anyone responded more than once anonymously but I left one of the above comments. :) I must say I was glad to see that there were other(s) that felt the same as I do however.
Departments in the City are losing positions, Streets and Fire come to mind, employees are doing the work with less people, yet this City hires police everytime you read the paper. If the police dept. has more people on the hiring roles then why would we agree to pay them more?
They should do the work, adjust to it, or lose positions and send dispatch to the County. I dont get squat for my county taxes and its yet to be seen if the county would even charge, as they provide this service thru out the county anyway.
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