BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In an effort to meet the austerity
demands of the Congress-appointed financial control board
here, Mayor Marion Barry is seeking additional cuts in
welfare benefits and city workers' pay.
The mayor has sent legislation to the city council, calling for a 5 percent reduction in the city's Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. This comes on top of the elimination of this program on a federal level in the so-called welfare reform bill recently signed into law by President William Clinton. Barry has also called for reducing the pay of unionized D.C. government workers by 6 percent.
Meanwhile the mayor insists on maintaining some $1.6 million in the budget for salary raises and other perks for the D.C. government officials charged with implementing these cuts in social benefits and wages. Most of these administrators already make around $90,000 a year.
Some city council members are calling instead for discharging more workers instead of cutting wages. Council member Jack Evans, a Democrat, defended Barry's decision to cut welfare benefits and raise administrators' pay, but disagreed on how to implement the plan. "Don't cut people's pay. Fire the people who you don't need."
Barry maintains that his approach of ordering pay cuts rather than firing workers is more "humane." Though he is also considering the option of eliminating hundreds of additional jobs by January.
Meanwhile the head of the D.C. financial control board, Andrew Brimmer, made clear December 1 that if the mayor doesn't promptly reduce spending on social services and benefits by $85.4 million then he will decree legally binding orders for such cuts himself. Brimmer said he is considering cutting about 1,000 D.C. government jobs in December. He also wants to speed up cuts in benefits for city employees. Earlier this fall, Barry ordered the elimination of dental and optical benefits for thousands of unionized city employees and placed restrictions on overtime and weekend pay. This move was subsequently overturned after the unions appealed to the city's Public Employee Relations Board.
The mayor and financial control board are considering additional cuts as well. These include: eliminating the city's "general public assistance" program, halting payment of health insurance premiums for people with AIDS, eliminating a local health care program for poor people who do not qualify for Medicaid, ending city aid for the elderly who cannot run errands on their own, and further reducing the hours that D.C. public libraries are open.
The latest round of attacks on working people occur just two weeks after the control board fired the school superintendent and stripped the elected school board of all powers, replacing it with appointed trustees. Charged with running the school system is retired Army general Julius Becton Jr.
The new school chief's first move was to announce that security is his top priority. He is reviewing a plan to send armed police officers into the schools, as well as to set up surveillance cameras and metal detectors in the hallways.
"These kids are not criminal, they are students," stated a guidance counselor. "Would you want armed men in your child's school? What has it come to?"
Brian Williams is a member of United Steelworkers of America Local 2609 in Sparrow Point, Maryland.