By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
An interim report comparing savings estimated by the Joint Shared Services Consolidation Commission and the numbers coming in from the Transition Task Force shows personnel savings estimates are ahead for the first year of consolidation.
”This is an interim report, and these are the numbers we’ve got now,” said Patrick Simon, Transition Task Force member. “These are the numbers of a work in progress.”
As of now, the savings for departments other than the police recommended by the TTF are more than those recommended by the JSSCC, said Mr. Simon.
”Assuming that holds up, we would save a little more money per year,” he said.
The task force personnel, infrastructure and operations subcommittees have recommended reductions of 14 full-time positions in all departments except for police and emergency management in 2013, for an estimated savings of $1.37 million.
Last year, the commission recommended a reduction of 9.5 full-time positions in 2013 from all departments other than police and emergency management, for estimated savings of $1.26 million.
This represents a reduction of 4.5 additional positions than originally recommended. Reductions come from tax and finance, engineering and public works departments.
This is a savings of an additional $110,000 annually, not one-time savings, said Mr. Simon.
The average savings from removing positions, other than the administrator, are $98,500 per position in salary and benefits, according to JSSCC estimates. The task force recommendations, other than the administrator, amount to $89,000 in savings per position for salary and benefits.
”These figures illustrate that the TTF recommendations target more positions cut with lower average salary than those recommended by the commission,” said Mr. Simon. “These numbers are subject to change as we complete our analysis.”
With the police force starting smaller by four to five sworn officers in 2013 than originally anticipated by the commission, a conservative preliminary estimate of the additional savings in that year is $415,000, because of the decision not to fill vacancies.
The task force public safety subcommittee has not addressed the size of the police force in 2014 and beyond, so no comparison of information beyond the first year is available for those years.
The public safety subcommittee has recommended one additional employee for administrative support for the director of emergency services, at an estimated cost of $75,000.

