Chattanooga is not budging on take-home cars.
The City Council decided Tuesday just before its regularly scheduled committee meetings to not reopen the 2010-11 fiscal year budget and find money to allow emergency personnel to keep their vehicles.
"There is no hidden pot of money," Mayor Ron Littlefield told the council during the meeting.
The issue of take-home cars has created controversy the past two weeks since the administration announced it would implement a fee for those driving take-home cars. Most of those affected by the program will be police officers.
About 70 police officers showed up at the council's regularly scheduled business meeting Tuesday night in protest of the fees, along with a handful of Chattanooga residents.
At the end of the meeting, Teresa Wood, who lives in St. Elmo, told the council she supports police officers taking their cars home.
"They should be adequately funded before we go funding anything else," she said. "Period."
The administration said the city could save almost $500,000 by implementing the policy. The total cost of take-home cars is around $1.5 million, city officials said.
Chattanooga Police Sgt. Craig Joel, vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police, addresses the Chattanooga City Council on Tuesday about take-home cars for officers.Littlefield spoke in depth Tuesday to the council for almost an hour and 15 minutes about the take-home car policy. He said the council made the decision six months ago during the budget session to give authority to the administration on coming up with the program.
He said it took six months for the administration to crunch the numbers and come up with a suitable program.
"Since there was a six-month lapse, it got everybody comfortable," he said.
But he said it now is the time to implement the programs and the best the city could do at this moment is to start looking at next year's budget. He said he would support a program next year allowing take-home cars for those employees who live in the city, and also suggested the city look at an incentive program for housing for police officers similar to a program now being conducted in Atlanta.
Councilman Russell Gilbert protested that take-home cars are needed now and that no matter where the officers live they still respond to calls.
"Can we not look at the budget and find some money?" he asked.
"We've got a balanced budget," Littlefield replied. "You're going to unbalance it."
Littlefield said opening up the budget could prove detrimental to the city's credit ratings.
The majority of council members agreed the city could not look at the budget at this time.
Chattanooga police Sgt. Craig Joel, vice president of the Chattanooga chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, told council members Tuesday night that he realized speaking was a "moot point." But he begged the council to reconsider allowing take-home cars, saying the city received a benefit of more patrol cars out on the road.
"It's not about a perk," he said. "It's not about a benefit."
Jim Folkner, of Citizens to Recall Mayor Littlefield, also spoke to the council Tuesday night in support of police officers. He said the city should find the money for the cars. No matter where they are parked, they help protect him, he said.
"I'm a little safer with those cars out there," he said.
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TAKE-HOME CAR POLICY
The new take-home car policy for the city will take affect Jan. 13. Employees living inside the city will be charged 20 cents a mile to and from work, while those living outside the city will be charged 30 cents a mile.