Mobile Mayor Proposes Pay Cuts

Mobile Mayor Sam Jones plans to propose an across the board pay cut for all city employees, including police and firefighters.

Jones, who says he will voluntarily take the same cut, insists the city will avoid layoffs in fixing a $14.4 million budget shortfall. Jones blames the unbalanced budget on slumping tax revenue and an "aggressive" attrition projection that was not met.

"Our attrition rate didn't reach anywhere near our projection," admits Mayor Jones, whose 2010 budget included an attrition projection of nearly $21 million, which was more than $8 million over the previous year's projection, which was also not met. "We knew that our rate was ambitious when we set it, but we were no where near that."

Councilmember Connie Hudson isn't cutting the mayor any slack. In September, Hudson told Mayor Jones she had "no confidence" in his 2010 budget and specifically his attrition projection. Monday, Hudson called the budget shortfall "devastating" and said she would not support pay cuts.

An emailed memo circulating in the Mobile Police Department forbid on-duty officers from attending Tuesday's council meeting. The memo also reminded off-duty officers attending the meeting to leave their city-issued patrol cars at home.

Mayor Jones spent most of the day Monday in meetings. As of late early Monday afternoon, Jones did not know how much of a pay cut he would propose but said it would likely be between 5 and 15%.

A spokesperson for the Mobile County Law Enforcement Association said the organization is against the mayor's pay cut plan.

The pay cuts are in addition to 15% in budget cuts, which the Mayor instructed all city department heads to make last week.