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- Streets and Sanitation: 323
- Police Department civilians: 296
- Water Management: 295
- Aviation: 147
- Public libraries: 120
- Fleet Management: 79
- Transportation: 62
- General Services: 46
- Emergency Management: 34
- Revenue: 16
- City Clerk: 12
- Health: 11
- Fire: 11
- Law: 10
- Other departments: 42
With this round of cuts, Daley continues to put the pressure on the unions, trying to force them into a deal of shared layoffs. The mayor told reporters yesterday, "I understand that, in these very difficult economic times, people do not want to take days off without pay or make any other concessions. But unless everyone pitches in by giving something, some of our colleagues are going to lose their jobs and I don't want that to happen."
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Why can't Mayor Shortshanks get a pink slip?
"I just collected over a billion dollars for selling off all the parking meters to a private...oh, hey you, over there! You're fired."
While Daley is an autocrat, and these city departments may be bloated and rife with corruption, this is actually a problem being faced by nerly every city, county and state government in the nation- as tax revenues fall short of predictions duue to our tanking economy, big cuts are likely to follow. We're looking at another round of blows to the employment picture, more foreclosures, etc. Could get even uglier.
At least we're slightly better off than California.
All politics. You can bet there is not one patronage job on that list. That's where the real waste resides. City services will suffer more not because these folks got sacked. Service will suffer because the folks remaining don't have a clue as to what they're supposed to do.
The state and county seem to always lead off with time tested, "health care will suffer and this clinic and this hospital will unfortunately close due to the current budget crisis", line. No politician has the balls to cut the useless fat from their payrolls like the sleeping highway department guy who can't string 4 words together when asked what he does. Let the clinics close but don't wake up Bob down the hall when you do it.
It is the same shit every year yet these ass clowns still manage to get reelected.
While you may very well be correct in your assessment of just who is and is not part of this layoff, I have yet to encounter a single city employee with as much sense as a box of rocks, so I don't know who these good workers would be who are getting the shaft. Every employee of the city--or county, for that matter--I've come across has acted as if they're on a constant smoke break.
And even if you're right, this doesn't change the fact that the city employs far, far more people than it should. The layoffs are painful, and they may be hitting the wrong people, but I think they still need to happen ... and that there need to be more of them.
They have to be out there. Somewhere. The city couldn't run without a few smart people at the very least. Lord knows, the city of Chicago is being governed by a bunch of douche bags. In the hypothetical event, the city retains just the minimum number of people, you know the good ones will be long gone and the rest will be asleep at their desk while the snow plows sit in the garage because someone forgot to order fuel.....
I volunteer at a branch of the public library. The people there are nice and seem to work hard, and they are understaffed as it is. Since I have started volunteering there, the number of people using the library and the amount of work has increased exponentially. I can't imagine how some of these branches are going to handle the ever increasing workload with fewer people.