Emergency Management Team Tasked With Reviving Atlantic City Has Some Worried About Job Cuts
By Cleve Bryan
ATLANTIC CITY, NJ (CBS) – The arrival of Governor Chris Christie's emergency management teamed tasked with fixing Atlantic City's troubled finances has labor leaders worried about job cuts.
"We certainly don't want jobs cut, we certainly don't want important programs cut because our children need to be the priority," says Marcia Genova, president of the Atlantic City Education Association which represents nearly 1,200 teachers and support staff.
The union contract can't stop layoffs and Genova says there are several hundred school district employees without tenure.
Christie announced last week that corporate restructuring expert Kevin Lavin is the new emergency manager for Atlantic City and attorney Kevyn Orr who oversaw Detroit's bankruptcy is his special consultant.
Atlantic City School Board president John Devlin says he is going to Trenton on Thursday with the school superintendent and state Senator Jim Whelan to meet with the New Jersey Commissioner of Education.
Devlin says there is a lot of confusion about additional state control over school budget decisions.
"Cuts across the board we possibly could lose some programs and that could affect some children, but overall the consensus is that taxes are too high in Atlantic City and we need some help to reduce the taxes," says Devlin.
Uncertainty over money matters doesn't sit well with the firefighters union which has been without a contract since New Year's Day.
"We don't know what the whole powers of these emergency management guys are but it feels like to us 'this is what you're going to take and you can't say nothing about it.' I mean it feels like our hands are going to be tied," says Chris Emmell, president of Local 198 Firefighters Union.
