What A tragedy.

I can't begin to imagine the loss of the 16 year old
who was driving this car alone @ 3:25 in the morning
Story and photo from the News Times

NYT > In Budget Crisis, States Take Aim at Pension Costs

This is an extremely important story as I believe it is a realistic harbinger of things to come. It will eventually filter down to towns like Ridgefield which is why we should be doing something about it now. Read the entire story here.

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH published June 19, 2010

Many states are acknowledging this year that they have promised pensions they cannot afford and are cutting once-sacrosanct benefits, to appease taxpayers and attack budget deficits.

Gov. Pat Quinn said an overhaul would save Illinois’s pension system $300 million in its first year. But the fund is weakened.

Articles in this series are examining the consequences of, and efforts to deal with, growing public and private debts.

Illinois raised its retirement age to 67, the highest of any state, and capped public pensions at $106,800 a year. Arizona, New York, Missouri and Mississippi will make people work more years to earn pensions. Virginia is requiring employees to pay into the state pension fund for the first time. New Jersey will not give anyone pension credit unless they work at least 32 hours a week.

“We can’t afford to deny reality or delay action any longer,” said Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois, adding that his state’s pension cuts, enacted in March, will save some $300 million in the first year alone.

But there is a catch: Nearly all of the cuts so far apply only to workers not yet hired. Though heralded as breakthrough reforms by state officials, the cuts phase in so slowly they are unlikely to save the weakest funds and keep them from running out of money. Some new rules may even hasten the demise of the funds they were meant to protect.

Lawmakers wanted to avoid legal battles or fights with unions, whose members can be influential voters. So they are allowing most public workers across the country to keep building up their pensions at the same rate as ever. The tens of thousands of workers now on Illinois’s payrolls, for instance, will still get to retire at 60 — and some will as young as 55.

One striking exception is Colorado, which has imposed cuts on its current workers, not just future hires, and even on people who have already retired. The retirees have sued to block the reduction.

Other states with shrinking funds and deep fiscal distress may be pushed in this direction and tempted to follow Colorado’s example in the coming years. Though most state officials believe they are legally bound to shield current workers from pension cuts, a Colorado victory could embolden them to be more aggressive. [snip]

Vote 'No' at the May 26 Town Meeting > My take on the proposed flagman ordinance

"Police Chief John Roche and other commissioners agreed that though the ordinance was brought forward for economic reasons, it is a safety measure that would benefit the town."

Well, now it's too late to change the sense of the ordinance.

If the police union and the First Selectman could not come to a wage agreement across the negotiation table, then it should have gone to arbitration. End of story.

The problem is that Mr. Marconi agreed to the proposed ordinance as part of the town's contract negotiations with the police union. Therefore, for the police union, it is rightfully an economic issue. No matter what anyone else wants to call it, it is built in overtime for police officers & the town has to proceed to present the ordinance for a vote at a town meeting. This will happen Wednesday, May 26th.

Never should a proposed vote by the public be part of a labor contract. It becomes a hidden tax rather than the town's cost of doing business which is budgeted annually.

If it was purely a safety issue -- which I believe it is -- it could be handled by the Police Commission as part of their charge. The Police Chief can shut down any job that he considers a traffic or safety hazard and, by his own admission, he currently has the right to determine if an assignment is a 'special duty' assignment (i.e. offered to any off duty officer) or as part of the regular work day or if a non-police flagman is sufficient to handle the work.

A 'special duty' assignment requires a four hour minimum assignment at time and a half or -- on special occasions -- double time. Except for rare exceptions like a private party or something along those lines, I believe all this could be handled within a normal work day. If it became too much for the current force to handle as indicated by a rise in the crime rate, an outrageous increase in overtime, overworked police officers or something along those lines, the Police Commission could recommend the hiring of an additional officer to take up the extra load in the future. 

In my opinion, this is just another example of why Ridgefield should hire a town centric labor relations firm to negotiate ALL town contracts in the future. Had that been the case, this entire matter would probably not have arisen because it would have been foreseen by a professional negotiator. 

In this case, I don't think the town was well served by our First Selectman.

BoS wording for flag man ordinance > Click image to Enlarge

POLICE wording for flag man ordinance > Click image to enlarge