The mayor wanted to push through a whopping 29% tax rate hike. The city council refused to go along with his plan. Now the city — Vice President Joe Biden’s home town — has a cash flow problem so severe it has cut all city employee pay to minimum wage.
“This needs to be resolved,” Scranton firefighter and president of the local firefighters union John Judge told FoxNews.com. “My members are getting a check for $7.25 an hour. These are people that are the head of their households. They have mortgages. They have other living costs. They are now going to have to throw their bills in a hat and randomly pick what gets paid on time.”
The judge was not in his chambers Monday, but attorneys for the local city workers’ unions were planning to go to court Tuesday morning to ask him to hold Doherty in contempt of court for violating the injunction.
In addition to scaling back wages, Doherty’s move cut off overtime, worker’s compensation and disability.
The city of Scranton has battled budget woes for years, but the problems reached a boiling point after the City Council blocked Doherty’s plan to raise taxes to cover a $16.8 million shortfall, opting instead to borrow money to cover the budget gap.
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