By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, May 24, 1991
The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03
The state police on Thursday began training 29 officers in dispatching in the wake of notices sent to 123 of the agency’s 127 civilian dispatchers that they would be laid off next month.
The two-day instruction of senior troopers and sergeants at Fort Dix ensures that the agency will have trained people operating its criminal-justice information system should the layoffs go through, said Capt. Thomas Gallagher, a state police spokesman.
The dispatchers union has filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the state’s Public Employment Relations Commission, and has asked the state Department of Personnel for an affirmative-action review because the dispatchers are predominantly women and minorities, the union’s president said.
Dominick Critelli, who heads the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents the dispatchers, also questioned the wisdom of laying off dispatchers who earn between $18,000 and $25,000 a year and replacing them with officers who earn about $45,000.
Public safety would suffer because fewer troopers would be enforcing the law; at the same time, the state won’t see the expected $3.3 million savings from the layoffs, Critelli said.
“I can’t see cutting services in the area that they are cutting because there is nothing gained economically,” he said. “What you are talking about is a loss in services for basically the same dollar amounts if these people lost their jobs and go on to collect unemployment and receive some type of social assistance.”
Gallagher said public safety would not suffer because the people being trained to do the job work in the offices. They would just have to assume the additional responsibility of operating the dispatching system, he said.
The $3.3 million savings expected from laying off the dispatchers should bring to $7.2 million the amount saved by state police labor cuts this fiscal year and in next year’s budget.
Earlier this year, the state police cut $1.1 million from this year’s budget by laying off 32 inspectors from the Alcoholic Beverage Control Enforcement Bureau, Gallagher said.
The savings from the dispatcher layoffs, plus $2.8 million expected from the laying off of 160 security guards in state buildings, would be applied to next year’s budget, he added.
Civilians have been working as dispatchers since the state created the position in 1970 as a way to put more troopers on the road.
Keywords: POLICE; NEW JERSEY; INFORMATION; EMPLOYMENT
ID: 17344306 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)
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