One of Pittsburgh's financial overseers charged that a new five-year contract with city firefighters is illegal, and threatened to take legal action if changes aren't made.
City Council members last week approved a contract negotiated between the firefighters union and Mayor Tom Murphy's administration. The deal aims to save the city about $10.7 million a year by closing six city fire stations, reducing overtime pay, pairing 108 empty department positions, freezing wages for two years and increasing what firefighters pay for medical coverage.
"It violates the five-year (spending) plan that we all agreed to, and it violates the Act 47 law itself," said William K. Lieberman, president of the city's oversight board. "All we ask is that they rectify it."
The oversight board was appointed by the state in December to monitor city spending and to ensure officials stick to the budget designed by a financial recovery team created under state Act 47 after Pittsburgh was declared a financially distressed city in 2003.
Oversight board attorney Glenn R. Mahone said two conflicts stand out above the rest:
The contract guarantees no layoffs for city firefighters, something Act 47 explicitly prohibits.
It doesn't clearly say whether firefighters would be subject to the 17.1 percent across-the-board salary cut required by the Act 47 plan, which was established in June. Fifty-two percent of the city's budget is police and fire.
And the lawyers begin to circle.....
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