Schnirman: Staffing was ‘out of control’ in 2011

With the city expected to move forward with a number of layoffs, City Manager Jack Schnirman said that a recent analysis conducted by the city comptroller over the last eight years showed that staffing levels in the city have spiraled “out of control.”

Last year in particular, Schnirman said, the number of employees on the city’s payroll reached an “unsustainable level,” and the previous administration did not budget for the new hires.

Personnel costs now account for 78 percent of the entire budget, or 81 percent of the general fund budget.

“Personnel costs traditionally should be in the 65 to 75 percent range in your budget, and we consulted with the New York Conference of Mayors on that,” Schnirman said. “A lot of people were hired in 2011 — it’s unsustainable, unaffordable and a major reason why the city is having such severe financial difficulties.”

The total number of employees in the city increased from 1,282 in 2004 to 1,624 last year, while the city’s population has decreased 6.2 percent since 2000, Schnirman said.

“The question we’re asking here is, How many people do we have, how many people do we need?” he said. “Assuming that the service levels are not changing, why are staffing levels changing so much?”

For example, Schnirman said, 207 lifeguards were hired in 2011, compared with 158 hired in 2004 — resulting in an 84.6 percent increase in salaries — while 27 full-time and part-time additional employees were hired at the Department of Public Works last year.

“There was a very significant and irresponsible spike in hiring in 2011,” Schnirman said.

Former Democratic Councilman Denis Kelly agreed that excessive hiring over the years has hurt the city.

“I think it’s a major contributing factor,” said Kelly, who served on the council from 2000-06. “My view as a resident taxpayer and former City Council person is that services haven’t changed in 10 years — nothing has changed that requires us to have more employees.”

But Councilman John McLaughlin, the council’s lone Republican, said he believes that the staffing analysis is somewhat misleading.

“Some of that is due to required staffing — the county required that you have two lifeguards on duty at all times while the beach is open. The staffing wasn’t as stringent years ago,” McLaughlin said. “Did the last administration hire a lot of kids for the summer? Yes, they did. We had, at the Rec, a dramatic increase in the number of people who take advantage of these programs in the summer, and you need supervisors and counselors for that. Instead of one kid working 40 hours, you have two working 20 hours each.”