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City Must Offer Buy-Outs

To The Editor:

Now that municipal unions have agreed with the city on a funding plan to save health benefits and forestall layoffs by three months, it's time for a full exploration of long-term solutions to the budget shortfall. The most obvious solution is a targeted buy-out for municipal workers, in which the city offers its employees the opportunity to leave city service with a severance package including health benefits.

Many members have been asking us about this alternative. Let's give it the serious consideration it deserves. A buy-out, or severance package, was successfully utilized by then-Mayor Giuliani in the spring of 1994, when 6,139 city workers took advantage of it. Back then, the city paid between $3,500 for new hires and $15,000 for workers with more than 30 years of service. Along with the money came nine months of health care benefits for every employee who took the buy-out.

This solution allows workers who might be planning to leave city service to do so with a small nest-egg, and with no resentment. That's not what happened to our already laid-off members, some of whom found themselves replaced almost immediately by other workers. The money to fund a buy-out plan would be minimal compared to the $200 million already contributed by the Health Insurance Stabilization Fund to the current deal. Let's move forward and let our valued civil servants elect an option that allows them to leave city service with dignity.
MARK ROSENTHAL
President, Local 983,
District Council 37
FITZ REID
President, Local 768, DC 37
REGGIE QADAR
President, Local 306, DC 37