Dyster Administration Works to Retire City Deficit Plans Afoot to Offer Early Retirement Packages

Sources say, Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster is expected to offer an early retirement package to city employees to try to cut the deficit.

We have been informed from sources within the Dyster administration that the mayor and his finance staff are trying to figure out how much money can be saved in the 2015 budget if some city employees can be enticed into early retirement through the offer of a cash incentive.

How the administration, facing what has been reported to be a 2015 budget deficit possibly as big as $9 million, could possibly canvass the entire city work force and reliably estimate any possible savings on such short notice is questionable to say the least.

The mayor’s budget is now more than 30 days late.

We have heard conflicting stories about the exact nature of the “incentive” with some telling us the incentive would be based on years of service times a fixed cash number and others saying there would be a flat cash payout regardless of years worked for all employees retiring by the end of 2014.

Will this be a trial balloon with which Dyster can gauge which employees wish to “get out while the getting is good,” or will he be legitimately committed to living with the results of his canvass letter?

One thing everyone agrees upon is that it’s well past the budget’s eleventh hour - more than 30 days past - and logically impossible to balance the budget with such a last minute slapdash retirement incentive gimmick.

Does he sincerely wish to send people into mutually beneficial retirement, or looking for ways to rid himself of some he would otherwise prefer to fire in order to place friends in the open positions?

That wouldn’t save money.

Does he wish to send some of his closest employees into “retirement” with a sizeable cash incentive, only to rehire them as “part time employee-consultants,” something he has done in the past for favored employees?

No savings there, either.

If members of the city fire and police departments retire, will the mayor have to replace those vacated public safety slots. If so there is certainly no savings in that.

In the meantime the residents await the presentation of a 2015 budget that Dyster has promised “will not be pretty.”