Barrington lays off 2 police officers

Barrington Village President Karen Darch said back in April it was unclear whether six veteran police officers taking early retirement would be enough to avoid layoffs.

It wasn't.

Effective Saturday, the village is laying off two officers with the least seniority. Union representatives with the Fraternal Order of Police said the move will result in a delay of police service because of the lack of sufficient manpower, and that both public safety and officer safety will be in jeopardy.

"We do not believe the village's police layoffs are warranted," a Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 177 release stated. "The layoffs will make Barrington police coverage dangerously thin."

However, former police chief and Acting Village Manager Jerry Lawler called that a self-serving statement and believes the level of service will be unchanged with the exception of curtailed crime prevention programs.

The village knew it would have to scale back the department when its contract to police Inverness expired on May 1. Barrington officials said then that the new optimum number of sworn police officers was 23. These two layoffs put the department at exactly that number.

Union attorney Heidi Parker said the village agreed to delay the layoffs until the recipients of the federal police grants were named over the summer. But not a single North, Northwest or West suburban police department received one dime of the $1 billion in stimulus money to hire more officers.

Since then, the village learned it has to contribute an additional $340,000 to the police and fire pension fund in 2010 and that revenue from the state's income tax is down 15 percent. Sales tax revenue has also declined.

Union representatives maintain the layoffs make no sense because calls for service in Barrington are up between 200 and 300 through September compared to the same period in 2008. But Lawler said that's a small percentage given there might be 10,000 calls annually.

The union also noted its cooperative spirit, in which police officers offered to extend their pay freeze through April 30, 2010. The department was supposed to get a pay increase on May 1, 2009, Parker said.