As we assess the financial situation of the City of Butler we are faced with choices.

The first being take no action — continue the status quo and do nothing except talk with consultants and pay for study after study which end up filed away with no action taken — all causing some to feel better because they discussed the problem.

The second is, as a group, to take the action needed to start real change as prescribed in the studies.

An area that has been addressed is the parking authority. I pushed to eliminate that authority and was successful. The city now controls the assets and all of the financials in regards to parking. Still to be addressed is the matter of parking rates and upgrades to the existing parking facilities.

Another area was the police dispatch desk. I successfully closed that, not to eliminate jobs but to get more police officers on the streets. Also, a duplication of services was eliminated by having Butler County Emergency Services do our dispatching. Their system also has a better record of our calls for service.

We have cut streets and parks to the bare minimum. I truly believe we need additional manpower in this area. Studies have recommended the merging of these two departments. I feel we should start this process now by merging at the administrative level first; then, after planning, physically merge both departments to better utilize our equipment and manpower.

We need to address pension reform in our future contracts. We need to move towards plans that are more like the private sector. We need to go with 25 years of service and an age of 55 to be eligible for full retirement. We also need to have all new hires for all jobs come under this type of plan. We need also to support HB 414 amending the Pennsylvania Municipal Pension Plan Funding Standard and Recovery Act.

The FOP and our AFSCME unions have given up much over the years. The IAFF (firefighters union) however has not been as willing to negotiate much in the way of givebacks, not even for future hires. This must be changed. We must not retreat at the mention of arbitration; we must strongly support the residents of this city.

Since taking office I have received monthly overtime reports. They are alarming in that we have failed to address the issue of fire department overtime to maintain a four-man staffing minimum. This is the one area in which we could control some of the overtime.

The four-man minimum was fought and was defeated in a court case. If it were not for our contract we could eliminate upwards of $100,000 per year in overtime. If we went from four turns to three five-man turns, we could also eliminate some overtime and also some rank — again, as recommended in the studies.

We need to remove the no-layoff clause in the fire department contract. This is an illegal clause. Overtime for holidays and actual work is something we will live with as it varies and is minimal as compared to staffing overtime.

One thing the average resident does not know is that our firemen have more days off than at work due to the 24-hour shifts and 42-hour work week. I'm sure some residents would be surprised that many firefighters have other employment outside of working for the city. Some of them actually have full-time jobs while others have part-time jobs. While they are at these other jobs they are not even available to respond here if needed.

At this time all but three of our firefighters live outside the city — all within the 15 mile radius but outside of the municipality by which they are employed.

It is time for the City of Butler to begin to address these issues or our financial situation will proceed to the next level: total financial collapse. We need to seriously look at the use of paid responders and the use of our mutual aid volunteers. We need to look into the feasibility of merging our fire service with our volunteer neighbors we we all have affordable and excellent coverage.

The time is now, the studies have been collecting dust for years. We cannot continue to ignore this area of our problem and pretend it will get better on its own. It won't.

We also must institute a reasonable equipment replacement schedule so as to maximize the useful life and value of all our equipment. This will lower repair costs and somewhat help to stabilize this area of our expenses.

Some will likely want to dispute this or continue to talk about these ideas; however, the time for talking is over. The time for action is here. This can has been kicked down the road until there is no more road.

It has taken 40-plus years for our city to get where we are. It cannot be fixed overnight. But looking over the studies the taxpayers have paid for, it's easy to understand that if even a portion of the recommendations had been heeded, we would not be in he dire financial straits we face.

Tom Donaldson is the mayor of Butler.