Most in Administration
500 Layoffs Loom At Housing Authority

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

The Housing Authority announced last week that 500 layoffs expected by October will likely hit central office and administrative positions hardest, skirting direct-service and maintenance titles.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow PUTS ONUS ON FEDS, STATE: Local 237 President Gregory Floyd, whose union represents 8,000 workers at the Housing Authority, argued that 500 planned layoffs could be prevented by re-prioritizing Federal spending and forcing the state to allocate money it has withheld for a decade.

Local 237 Plans Rally

Cuts in Federal aid and skimpy state spending left the agency with a projected $225-million budget deficit this year. The $8 million in savings gained through the staffing cuts is part of a belt-tightening package that will still leave the HA $51.6 million in the red for 2007.

Teamsters Local 237 officials have not been told whether any of their 8,000 HA employees, who mainly work in direct-service titles, will be affected. But the union is planning a June 12 rally at City Hall to convince local, state and Federal politicians to pony up the money and avert the layoffs.

"One of the buzzwords for politicians now seems to be 'affordable housing,''' said Local 237 President Gregory Floyd. "Here we have the most affordable housing that you can ever have, and we're talking about not maintaining it and reducing services."

Local 237's HA members work in maintenance and the skilled trades, and as Housing Assistants, supervisors and groundskeepers. About 20 percent of them also live in public housing facilities.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow 'BUSH CUT US OFF': Housing Authority Chairman Tino Hernandez, flanked by General Manager Douglas Apple (left) and Vice-Chair Earl Andrews Jr., said layoffs were necessary to address a $225-million budget deficit and lamented the 'era of disinvestment in public housing by the Federal Government.'

"Our commitment is to preserve core services," HA Chairman Tino Hernandez said at a City Council hearing last week, "so we really want to make sure we are filling our positions of caretakers, of maintenance workers, of skilled tradesmen; the folks who do the daily work that maintains our public housing complexes."

'Preserved If Possible'

But the Commissioner stopped short of guaranteeing that those jobs were safe. "Those are the positions we're really going to look to exclude to the greatest extent possible from any layoffs," he said.

He said the occupations that the agency was considering most for reductions were "administrative functions, central office functions, support functions, in programs and layers of management that can be removed." Some of the personnel cuts could mean closing down community centers and social service programs.

At the same time, Mr. Hernandez said the agency was looking to staff some open positions. "Today we have a number of vacancies," he explained, "primarily in the field, and frankly, we're looking to fill those positions."

District Council 37 represents the clerical workers at HA and lost the most members in the last round of layoffs. The agency has reduced its headcount by about 2,000 since 2003.

"We are aware of the Housing Authority situation," DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said in an e-mail, "and we're going to be meeting with them to discuss it."

Job Freeze in October

About $10 million in savings will come from a hiring freeze as of Oct. 1, but an HA spokesman said the agency was hoping to fill 250 vacancies before that time, mostly in the direct-service positions. Mr. Floyd said HA officials told him they would be hiring 300 caretakers over the next several months.

GOVERNOR SPITZER: Not much help so far.

Union officials are backing City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez's effort to add $88 million in city funding to help plug the budget hole, but she, HA and union officials agreed that the state and Federal governments were most responsible for stepping in with more funding.

Albany has not provided money since 1997 for the 15 city developments built by the state. That year, the State Legislature allocated $12 million. This year HA officials asked the newly elected Governor Spitzer for $62 million, but only $3.4 million appeared in the final budget.

Housing advocates, union officials and local elected officials indicated that their greatest hope lay with a bill with significant support in the Legislature that would add $46 million in shelter subsidies similar to what private city landlords already receive. Mr. Floyd argued that the state "owed retroactive payments" after almost a decade of underfunding.

Question Bush Priorities

At the national level, the Bush Administration has been cutting Federal money for public housing since it took office, provoking Mr. Hernandez to decry the current "era of disinvestment in public housing by the Federal Government."

Mr. Floyd argued that the Federal Government's spending cuts reflected its priorities rather than fiscal constraints. "I know that the money's going somewhere," he said at the hearing, "and I know that the money went to tax cuts for the wealthy, and it also went to - I hate to mention this - but it happened to go to Iraq to fund that war that none of us wanted, and we are actually paying for it here."

The city allocated $100 million this year for capital spending over the next four years, and it agreed to buy unused HA land for a total of $50 million for conversion into affordable housing. But the agency argued that the staffing cuts were still necessary because personnel was one of its largest expenditures.

"We're trying to create fiscal stability," said Mr. Hernandez, "and some structural balance, so that next year we don't come back and say, 'Now we have do something different.'''

Layoffs No Solution

Council Members were sympathetic to the agency's plight, but Brooklyn's Letitia James argued that layoffs were not the answer. "It's my position that structural balance should not be achieved on the backs of the employees," she told the HA Chairman. She added that she thought the city should consider forgoing the $21 million the HA pays City Hall in lieu of taxes, but HA General Manager Douglas Apple said the agency was "not having that conversation right now."

Mr. Floyd asserted that the union should have been told further in advance about the job cuts. "Being given 16 hours' notice before the papers is really not a partnership," he said. "To tell me on Tuesday at 3 p.m., the day after a holiday, that we're going to have layoffs is really not the way to do business." The news of the budget plan was made public in the press on Wednesday morning.

The union will meet with HA officials this week to review the budget, but Mr. Floyd said he didn't believe that the agency would reveal to him exactly where the layoffs might occur.

"If we're not affected," he said, "they won't tell me because they want '237' in this fight."

But the union leader said his members would be involved even if their jobs were not directly threatened. "We would help regardless," Mr. Floyd said. "The members care about the people they serve, and they live in public housing. They have family in public housing; I have family in public housing."