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When Jenny Wood talks about her job as a public safety dispatcher for the city of Sunnyvale, she starts to get teary-eyed. After almost four years on the job, Wood says her experience working with the city and saving lives has been rewarding. But soon all this could change, as city manager Robert LaSala's proposed cuts to service levels call for the elimination of four dispatcher positions from a staff that Wood says is already thin.
This when much of the city staff is questioning the validity of the budget cuts enough to request an audit of the city's finances.
In response to the city's budget crisis, LaSala released a list of proposed changes on April 18, and city employees got a chance to respond to city council members about the changes at a public input meeting on April 23.
Employees from four unions spoke about their grievances with the proposed cuts and pleaded with council members to work with them to save jobs and maintain the level of safety that Sunnyvale residents currently experience.
Wood said dispatchers are already working under high pressure, as they have to answer 911 calls as well as monitor and help police and fire officers in the field. In the early morning hours, there are only two dispatchers working at a time. "Once I had to help an officer in a foot pursuit, and my supervisor was helping someone administer CPR. Had there been one more 911 call we would have been in trouble," Wood said.
It's very easy to get overwhelmed, and the job can cause burnout and illness, Wood said. "There's always that fear that your officers or others will get injured. I can't begin to tell you how I would feel if someone died because they were on hold," Wood said.
Other employees voiced complaints as well. Ben Holgaate, president of the Service Employees International Union, told council members that the proposed outsourcing of additional numbers of custodians for would hurt the city's current employees. "Even in the best of times we were contracting out custodians," he said.
Lt. Kelly Fitzgerald, vice president for the Public Safety Officers Association, said employees from various departments work together, and the removal of a position from one department would adversely affect another. The records department, for example, gives information to officers out in the field in a timely manner. "The records staff does so much for us, and dispatchers track all the officers," Fitzgerald said. He urged council members to look at all of the agencies on a larger scale.
Phil Carr, a public safety officer, said he's seen the city go through five budget crises over the years. "If you cut a number, that doesn't mean the community problem just disappears," Carr said. For example, if the three neighborhood resource officer positions are eliminated as proposed, school children might become more of a problem for officers in the future.
Most city employees present at the meeting expressed an interest in working with the city council to reduce costs in their departments.
The four unions—the Communications Officers Association, the Sunnyvale Public Safety Officers Association, the Service Employees International Union and the Sunnyvale Employees Association—have hired an accounting firm to review the city's finances.
The audit may show that the budget crisis is not as dire as the city manager has presented, said Steve Fisk, president of the Sunnyvale Public Safety Officers Association. "Cities go through economic cycles. This crisis is far too easy to blame on employee costs. We're hoping that the reserves can see us through," Fisk says.
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