The Citizens Budget Commission has issued forth with four reports as to how New York City could close its budget gap without raising taxes — an issue near and dear to our hearts. The document dump yesterday was in anticipation of a conference the CBC will hold Saturday on the topic of the gap. The mayor and members of the City Council, among other budget experts, are expected to attend. We’ve already mentioned in earlier editorials the possibilities of savings in the city’s purchasing procedures and in special education, areas where the CBC also sees potential savings. The group’s other proposals deal with a 40-hour work week for city employees, efficiency in the police department, and energy conservation, and total up to an estimated $796 million in savings.

Out of the city’s 80,000 civilian employees (meaning those who aren’t uniformed officers or senior administrators or managers) only 10,000 are required to work a 40-hour week, the CBC says. About 3,400 work a 37.5-hour week, and more than 67,000 work a 35-hour week. CBC recommends the Earth-shattering proposal that all city workers be required to work a standard 40-hour week. Getting more work done with less people — specifically 8,500 less people, at an average per-person cost of $58,000 including salary, fringe benefits, and space costs — could save the city $498 million a year. Worker specialization, an argument likely to be made against any reduction in headcount, would hardly be a problem. As the CBC report states, only about 7% of civilian workers are in jobs with less than eight incumbents in the same agency. As for agencies that are geographically dispersed, the CBC recommends moving workers into more centralized offices or workers dividing their time between two or more locations. Again though, this wouldn’t likely be a problem — 73% of civilian workers are in facilities with at least 100 other civilian workers.

The CBC’s report on efficiency in the police department recommends three ways to reduce personnel costs in the police department, which spends 94% of its budget on personnel. In total, the CBC estimates that these proposals could save the city $251 million a year. The first recommendation is to reduce the amount of time officers are given between shifts. Police officers work in shifts of eight hours and 35 minutes. The eight hours are spent on the beat; the 35 minutes overlap with other officers’ beats, and are designated for briefings and changing clothes. If this 35 minutes were reduced to 15 minutes, it would be the equivalent of 10 more working days a year for each officer — at current staff levels, the equivalent of making available 1,083 additional officers. At current salary and benefit rates, CBC estimates the Police Department could save $67.3 million annually by using the time to offset new hires. The CBC also proposes civilianization of jobs needlessly held by uniformed officers. Though the department wants to keep these low-risk jobs as rewards to officers, the savings from civilianizing about one-third of positions that uniformed officers unnecessarily hold could be another $67 million a year. Reform of the overtime system, which currently sees officers performing routine and foreseeable tasks on overtime, could save, according to CBC, another $118 million.

The CBC also estimates that out of a $500 million a year expenditure for electricity and fossil fuels, about $47 million could be saved by more closely managing energy consumption and instituting an incentive program for agency and facility managers. All of this, totaling $796 million in savings a year, can be read about in more depth at www.cbcny.org. Let’s hope the mayor listens this Saturday, and sets a bookmark.