East St. Louis Laying Off Firefighters and Police Officers

The next time you call 911 in East St. Louis, you may not get a response as quick as you might expect. Two weeks ago, public service workers in St. Louis were given notice that they would no longer have a job come August first.

Nineteen police officers and eleven firefighters will be out of a job as of Sunday. According to St. Louis mayor Alvin Parks, Jr., a total of thirty-seven city employees are being laid off. The layoffs were passed by a 3-2 vote during a July 31 East St. Louis City Council meeting. Officials made the decision in order to circumvent a loss of state funding from the Financial Advisory Authority.

Citizens, firefighters, and the police force itself are all expressing their outrage, as well as their fear over the loss of so many police officers and firefighters. Only thirty police officers will now be serving the East St. Louis area, which is already considered understaffed by the locals.

The Reverend Joseph Tracy, pastor of Straightway Baptist Church, perhaps summed it up best. “It’s open field day now. The criminals are going to run wild.”

Police union vice president Keith Randolph agrees. “The citizens are in grave danger,” he says.

Firefighters, too, are outraged, having already suffered five layoffs and eight vacant positions. This particular department also takes care of the largest highway system in Missouri—in the Midwest, in fact—and such cuts will definitely impact responses to accidents and other disasters.

According to Mayor Parks, these layoffs could have been avoided if the police union had not demanded $510,000 in furlough money for days off.  However, City Manager Deletra Hudson says that the layoffs could have been avoided in another way—a 20% salary cut.

While a cut in salary is not a desirable action, it is still doable. I know this because my husband’s had to work with a reduction of his salary by 25% before. Did we survive? Yes. Did we have to make cutbacks? Definitely. But having his job—and his benefits—were much better than having nothing at all.

The city worries that more layoffs may be in the future as arbitration for more furloughs may continue from other public work unions.

Mayor Parks wants citizens to know that he supports the police force and is reluctant to make these cuts. “We have some of the bravest police officers and firefighters in the country. But we don’t have the money to pay them,” he says.