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Unions urge revisions to budget proposal

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COMPTON, Calif.–A number of ideas were bounced around Tuesday at the Compton City Council meeting regarding the budget, which the Council postponed voting on until next week’s council meeting.

After listening to the frustration of the public, the mayor suggested that rather than complaining about the budget, which has been presented by the city manager, people should take it upon themselves to come up with alternative solutions to balancing it.

Compton is facing a projected $25 million shortfall.

Members of the community, specifically the unions, were frustrated with the fact that all of the proposed budget revisions put forth by the council included employee layoffs.

The Compton Coalition of Unions said it prepared a proposal that they believe will save the city $6.7 million and would eliminate the need for the 91 layoffs proposed by city manager Willie Norfleet; they are hoping to have a sit-down with him in order to save jobs.

“Our next step is to get a meeting with the city manager, and we would like to have him incorporate our suggestions into the budget. If he does this, there won’t have to be any layoffs. We have to convince him that our way is the best way, because right now it seems like he isn’t even interested in preventing the layoffs; he has his budget and he is sticking to it.

“We need to do whatever we can to preserve city services and prevent these layoffs. We don’t want to further devastate the city, and with the unemployment rate at 19.6 percent already, why would we add to that? If the city manager incorporates our ideas into the budget, we will gladly get behind him and push to pass it,” said Rose Downs a 20-year employee and longtime resident of the city.

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