Job cuts have come to the County of Miami-Dade and on Friday a great number of employees were giving them their walking papers, with the rest to be done by the end of the week. The layoffs are coming to 118 members of the police force as well as to the 282 other workers who were employed by the county.

In an email sent to the Miami-Dade police staff by Director Jim Loftus said the following, “in a department with a history of dark and difficult days, this one is unique. Never before have so many of our finest left us under these circumstances. To everyone impacted by this layoff, my heart goes out to you. My family and I will keep you in our prayers.”

The job cuts came to the workers after the county commissioners rejected a plan that was put forth by the mayor. The plan was a bit controversial, because it would have staved off layoffs by significantly increasing the costs of health care for all workers. Since many of those workers are members of two unions the plan was not popular.

While no action has been taken at this time the police union has been dropping hints that some kind of legal action may be taken in the future, regarding the layoffs. We will have to wait and see if anything happens or if this is just more political posturing in order to prevent more layoffs in the future.

This is, as you may recall from our earlier coverage that this is not the first time that politics have come into play with police layoffs. Several stops and starts have happened in this matter;

“Earlier in this month the mayor of Miami-Dade, Carlos Gimenez, said that if a new contract could not be negotiated that would allow the city to save the needed funded 90 police officers would need to be let go from the force. The layoffs could have gone into effect as early as the beginning of November. Yesterday, the mayor decided to hold off, at least for a few days, while contract negotiations continue.

‘The layoff letters are not going out on October 17th,’ a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office stated in an e-mail that was sent to The Miami Herald on Sunday. ‘Discussions will continue at the next bargaining session.’ The next bargaining session is slated to begin on Tuesday.

The negotiations with the Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association, who represent the majority of the officers within the department, are expected to resume on Tuesday during a public session held at County Hall. Since this session is open to the pubic it is expected that it will be attendee by both the majority of off duty police officers and their supporters. While this will certainly allow for a high level of transparency, it will also create a lopsided audience for these negotiations. This public bargaining session was originally scheduled for two weeks ago, but was postponed after issues during private negotiations.”