Weiner Seeks Payback for City Losses in Iraq

A local congressman said yesterday he would introduce a bill to push the federal government to reimburse the city for salaries of emergency workers, such as police officers and firefighters, who are sent to fight America’s wars as reservists.Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat who represents parts of Queens and Brooklyn and is considering a mayoral bid in 2009, said the war has cost city taxpayers close to $57 million to continue paying the salaries of municipal workers.With those workers facing battle, Mr. Weiner and a City Council member of Staten Island, Michael McMahon, estimate the city has lost more than 350,000 days of service from emergency workers.Under a program started under Mayor Giuliani after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and continued by the Bloomberg administration, military reservists who are employed by the city can choose to receive their salaries and perks — including insurance and pension benefits — if they agree to provide reimbursement for the lesser of the two salaries. About 95% of the workers deployed to war signed up for the program.Mr. Weiner said the program was intended for short furloughs of a few months, and America’s war in Iraq has continued for years, making the need for the federal government to pay particularly acute.Of the 303 city municipal employees currently deployed to war, 199 of them are first-responders, according to Mr. Weiner’s staff. More than 1,800 people who work for the city have put their city jobs on hold since 2001 to join the nation’s war efforts in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.Mayor Bloomberg, who earlier this week criticized a Homeland Security bill as “deeply flawed,” said he looked forward to whatever funds the city could secure from the federal government.“Any monies that the congressmen can get from Washington is certainly welcome,” the mayor said.Mr. Weiner said the effects on the city’s security due to its soldiers being deployed is incalculable.“If one of those soldiers was patrolling Lefferts Boulevard rather than being in Baghdad, would a crime have not been committed? Of course I can’t say that,” Mr. Weiner said. “But I can tell you that intuitively when you have that many fewer boots on the ground, what’s probably happening is they’re using overtime and we’re seeing the overtime expenditures go up a great deal in the city.”

Weiner Seeks Payback for City Losses in Iraq

Weiner Seeks Payback for City Losses in Iraq

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