In January we reported that the city of Camden was forced to lay off close to 200 police officers due to budget shortages. Well, 50 of those officers got some good news this past week when it was announced they would be hired back.
Governor Christie approved a $2.5 million boost to the city and Mayor Redd announced 50 police officers and 15 firefighters would be getting their jobs back. They are expected to return to work on April 1.
These officers are hoping their rehire isn’t short-lived as the positions are only guaranteed through June. The city will have to wait and see at that time if the Governor will help them sustain the returned officers.
Interestingly, the $2.5 million in funding is rent money that a state agency pays Camden. They were late with their rent, according to Philly.com.
The cause for such a large number of layoffs was the inability of the FOP to come to an agreement with the Mayor’s office. The union claims they agreed to an 18 month wage increase and step pay freeze. But the city was calling for a 20{74bbbd36a4df8b83bd1805c8c4f34bcc3063e84848f392c2fd8bb03fcdaa883e} wage reduction.
This isn’t a unique story to Camden, as we’ve told you about in recent weeks. Several departments in the state have been forced to give officers pink-slips to deal with lack of money and disagreements between cities and union officials.
How these layoffs affect city safety and the public’s perception of safety has been only guessed at by local media sources thus far. Time will tell if they have any dramatic impact on crime rates and if so, may offer city and state officials (as well as unions) some incentive for working things out.