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Monday, Nov. 17, 2008 | The mayor’s approach to cost cutting serves the interests of professional disciplines but not necessarily the public. We can no longer afford a Cadillac service delivery model that requires highly-trained professionals (librarians, sworn police officers or recreation leaders, etc.) to provide direct/one-on-one service to the public.
Instead, professionals should be training and supervising a team of para-professionals and non-sworn staff to provide direct services at more than one site, be it at rec centers, libraries or directing traffic. I support Independent Budget Analyst Andrea Tevlin’s recommendations to reduce service hours and require mandatory furloughs to keep our facilities open. However, instead of making non-union employees take pay cuts, I would convert professional positions to para-professional ones to force management to think outside of the box.