Cost-Cutting Conundrum

Trying to save on airport security overtime is as difficult as securing a direct flight from Syracuse to Atlanta

From the Capitol in Washington, D.C., to the Capitol in Albany, and through the halls of the Everson Museum in Syracuse, the cries of chief executives have been heard. The theme is the same: We must make do with less, and government must be smarter, leaner and more efficient.

President Obama, Gov. Cuomo, and Mayor Miner each had their moments to define the challenges of the coming year, and each, in his or her own way, sought to find the silver lining in the cloud hanging over us since the 2008 economic meltdown.

Their serious proposals stand in sharp contrast to the talking points of the loud fiscal conservatives who seem to be willing to do anything to solve our budget problems— except tell us how they’d like to do it. We’ve been waiting since November’s election and the swearing-in of Tea Party disciples, including our own Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle, to hear specifics on how to trim both the debt and the deficit. We’re still waiting.

Meanwhile the executives who must actually propose budgets to their respective legislative bodies have put forth proposals that include spending cuts as well as spending increases. In Obama’s case, the spending increases come in the form of what he calls investments in the future—education and infrastructure—hat will pay off in the long run.

Republicans, predictably, ridiculed anything that didn’t take a meat cleaver to the budget. In Miner’s case, she echoes the belief that education—in our case Say Yes to Education—is an investment our town cannot afford not to make. It has become commonplace to note that the budget this year will be a painful exercise. Soon Buerkle and the Tea Party will find out just how hard it will be to find those cuts they love to talk about.

Take just one example from Mayor Miner’s address—he idea of eliminating overtime for police officers working security at Hancock Airport. Overtime gets everyone riled up, and cutting OT could be considered the low-hanging fruit in the search for spending reductions.

Phil LaTessa, the city auditor whose job it is to not always agree with the mayor, thinks Miner is on the right track with this one.

“I’ve been pounding on this issue my whole term,” LaTessa says, “I knew the state was in dire straits. One thing we could look at was overtime, which had increased by 80 percent over nine years.” In the case of the airport, he makes the common sense case. “Why not just hire two more people, instead of paying for 1,000 hours a week in OT? If you had a private business you’d do that. At the end of the day we can save $3 million.

“But here’s the kick,” says the city auditor.

The city is trying to hand off financial control of the airport to a state-created authority. And once that happens (and it is likely to take place within the next year or so) the city cedes control of how airport security is funded.

“If the authority does it in such a way that it costs more, then what have we saved?” asks LaTessa. “If they go and blow the same amount as we’ve saved, we’ve done nothing but move the cost from the city to a public authority.”

Actually in this case there are two kicks.

Saving those $3 million won’t affect the bottom line for either the city or the proposed authority. Those costs are passed on to the airlines.

According to Bill Ryan, the new director of administration for the city, “We are spending over a buck per deplanement {that is, each time someone steps off a plane at Hancock}. We’re getting letters from airlines saying that we have to get those costs under control, or we run the risk of losing the airlines that we have to Rochester, or even Ithaca. The airlines are saying this is a cost they can’t sustain.”

It goes without saying that losing an airline to Ithaca would be a greater blow to our civic pride than losing to Seton Hall at the Dome.

If Ryan and his new boss want to take that plum OT from the cops, they will of course have to contend with the Police Benevolent Association, the union representing police officers, which predictably opposes the plan and, just as predictably, did not return calls from The New Times seeking comment.

The union and the city have been operating on a month-by-month basis since the police contract expired at the end of the year, muddying the waters a bit further. And then there’s this: According to Ryan, a study by former Deputy Police Chief Mike Heenan estimated that in order to fully staff the mandated airport security without resorting to overtime would require hiring 32 new police officers, not the two LaTessa noted. “And if you then turn security over to an authority,” asks Ryan, “what do you do with those 32 officers?” Still with me? To summarize, a cost cut by the city and/or a public authority, over the objections of a labor union, would not save the city any money, but pushing it through would essentially become a subsidy to private airlines and consumers, and at the same time an investment in our future. Sound simple enough?

No wonder it’s easier to win by promising across-the-board cuts. No wonder governing is so much harder than getting elected.

o

Read Ed Griffin-Nolan’s award-winning commentary every week in the Syracuse New Times.

He can be reached at edgriffin@twcny.rr.com.