Parishes Face Firefighter Layoffs
Yet another effect from Hurricane Katrina (from USA Today):
BATON ROUGE — Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Monday that many of the Louisiana's parishes devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are "on the verge of financial collapse" and may need to lay off scores of police officers and firefighters.Blanco appealed to the Bush administration and to Congress to amend or suspend a U.S. law that prohibits the use of federal money to cover basic expenses of local governments, including the payrolls of public safety and health departments.
This is really a tough situation. I feel bad for the firefighters (and other city employees) that may lose their jobs. However, I'm not sure that it is the federal government's place to pay salaries of city/county/parish employees - even in a situation like this.
It's a difficult thing to contemplate, but these local governments may be forced to move from a paid fire department to a volunteer fire department. At least until their town is rebuilt and they have the tax revenue available to go back to a paid department.
