Miami-Dade Police face budget crisis

MIAMI (WSVN) -- Miami-Dade County Police officers may soon be ticketed with pink slips from the mayor.

Officer Phil Veloso has seen more than most. He is a Miami-Dade Police officer whose has also fought in Iraq. But now he's back stateside and fears he might soon be out of a job. "I went over there, and I served my country for a year," he said. "I've served nine years in the military and have done three years in this department, and I don't really think it what the citizens of Dade County want. It's something that the mayor is pushing."

The county has to balance the budget. They are $239 million short. Part of the plan is to lay off 90 police personnel if the police union doesn't make concessions.

The mayor has said the first to go will be sworn officers in specialized squads. The pink slips go out Oct. 17 but the deadline for compromise to avoid layoffs is Nov. 1. Mayor Carlos Gimenez said, at the end of the day, there will be a balanced budget if the unions will not make the necessary cuts. "I think of the unions, we're probably the furthest away with the police department. It doesn't necessarily mean that we can't reach some kind of an accord, but if we don't, we're gonna have to do what we need to do," Gimenez said.

John Rivera, President of the Police Benevolent Association questions the county's numbers at the bargaining table as well as its leader. He said, "Right now, anything that comes from within his lips, I would not put any stock into it. I don't know whether he's lying, whether he's coming or going. I don't know if it's the good Gimenez talking or the bad Gimenez talking."

If Veloso or any other officer were to be laid off, it would be the first time department's 177-year history that police officers have been laid off. "What the union is trying to do is give us fair pay for what we are doing," he said. "With the budget cuts, the mayor is proposing we are going to be making less than security guards make while we are out here risking our lives for the public."

(Copyright 2011 by Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)