In the city of Yonkers there is a very big gap in the new budget that is going to have to not only result in some serious layoffs but in a stunningly big tax increase for the citizens of the city. Lets begin with the simple part, the tax increase. The city is going to have to add about $295 to the property taxes to the budget in order to make ends meet. The city is doing all of this to hold back on a $89.3 million budget gap that is set up for the next fiscal year. Now lets talk about the layoffs.

112 city workers are slated to be impacted by the cuts in the new budget plan. While this is a high number, enough to qualify as a mass layoff action, the cuts only represent a loss of about six percent of the  workforce currently employed by the city. The city, in a move of transparency, has already let the city know what kinds of jobs are going to be cut. Here is a look at how the cuts are going to break down:

• Thirty boots on the ground police officers.
• Seven higher ranking supervisory officers from the police department.
• Twenty Six firefighters.
• Ten supervisors in the fire department.
• Thirty Four public works employees.
• Seven workers for the parks department.

Interestingly enough the city is actually increasing its funding for education and no teachers will be laid off. This is a change not only from the approach that Yonkers has been taking in the last couple of years, but from the approach that many other cities and states are taking overall. For those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage here is a look at some of the private sector job  cuts that are set to have an impact on the state as well:

“It looks like more job losses are coming to the workers of The Eastman Kodak company, and this time almost 100 workers are being given the boot as the company stops making a line of products. The products in question are digital cameras for computers, the kind that you might find in you local department store or discount retailer. The layoffs, which will happen primarily in the state of New York, will impact 91 of the workers from a variety of facilities. The bulk of the job losses will come from the Manitou Road facility, with eight cuts from the Eastman Park facility, 11 at the Kodak office on State Street and only two from the Kodak Research Labs on Lake Avenue.

Of course, these are not the first signs of trouble that have been shown by the company. The company recently filed for bankruptcy and some other layoffs were announced recently.”
And who could forget the large scale cuts that were almost made to the civil servants in the city of New York last year? Who knows, maybe the city of Yonkers will be able to save some money, and jobs with some union concessions. For now no one is talking about that option.