To help the city of Rio Rancho end the fiscal year with a balanced budget, the city’s police and firefighter unions agreed to help by tightening their belts. And those tightened belts will have some wear on them.

To help the city fill a gap of at least $1 million, the unions agreed to forgo the rest of the year’s uniform allowances for union members. By contract, union members get $250 per quarter in uniform allowance. The unions also agreed to forgo their Memorial Day holiday pay.

At a budget hearing Monday, City Council voted unanimously to decrease their salary by .75 percent, the same cut they’re asking of city employees. Councilors make $13,506 annually. The mayor makes $27,019. The Council also agreed to forgo any annual raise for 2011.

“By us, the union, going to the city with these concessions, that should help take care of anything and everything so we can help,” said Tim Robey, president of the Police and Dispatchers’ Association Local 7911. “We are in this together. We’re trying to help them out. No sworn member will receive a pay decrease and next year no officer will receive a furlough or pay increase.”

In order to ensure those promises, union members will give up nearly three uniform allowances, helping the city out in the amount of about $73,000.

City Manager James Jimenez said the city is close to working out a deal with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) to provide flexibility in terms of furloughs, for example, by having employees take an hour off per pay period.

City leaders put on the table recommendations that city employees could choose a salary cut of one percent or take a three-day furlough.

Officers receive a uniform allowance to buy uniforms, boots, belts and other police gear.

“They may have to get their boots resoled than get new ones,” Robey said.

Giving up the uniform allowance rather than a cut in pay was crucial for the unions because, Robey said, if they conceded any decrease in salary, there was a concern that decrease would stay.

“Every member of Rio Rancho police, any pay we lost, will never get that money back — ever,” he said.

Also, cutting salary would hurt officers’ retirement investments, Robey said.

Initial budget recommendations included having public safety employees take a .75 percent pay cut through the end of fiscal year 2010, which ends June 30, and a 1 percent pay cut for fiscal year 2011.

During the budget hearing, Police Chief Robert Boone said despite a lean police force, Rio Rancho has the lowest violent crime rate in New Mexico and is among the lowest for property crime.

“With the lowest sworn police ratio, and facing challenges of equipment ... we provide a high level of service and low crime rate,” Boone said.

Boone, responding to criticism that the police department is top heavy, said Rio Rancho Police are about in the middle when it comes to administration spending when compared to peer police departments.

“We’re right where we want to be,” Boone said. “In light of the economy, I’d rather be a little light than a little fat. We’re not over-supervised, not under.”

Also at the meeting, the council voted to accept the budgets from the city’s departments. Councilor Tim Crum was the only councilor who voted no.

Crum said he voted no because he earlier called for a study of all the city’s positions to see if there were areas to reduce staffing. Public safety would have been excluded from the study, he said.

“It was a hard vote,” he said.

Source: Rio Rancho Observer, New Mexico, May 4, 2010