By Neale Gulley
The Tonawanda News
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The City of North Tonawanda has reduced and restricted the use of city cell phones in a move intended to save $3,000 per year.
Mayor Rob Ortt, in an announcement Wednesday, said the plan eliminates several “unjustified” cellular lines and creates the first firm plan on how remaining lines can be used by city employees.
“An annual cost saving of $3,000 will be realized by eliminating the use of 34 cellular lines that were not needed,” Ortt said in the statement. “That’s $3,000 that our taxpayers earned that will no longer be wasted. Given the current economic constraints out there, government has to be more frugal and watch how we spend every single dollar. We’re committed to doing that.”
A copy of the new policy on usage was also sent to every employee who uses a city-provided phone. An audit to monitor usage in accordance with the policy will be conducted each month, the message states.
“When I took over we started looking for a use policy seeing as though we have taxpayer provided cell phones and there was none,” Ortt said.
The new policy had to be negotiated within the union to parallel the union’s own policy.
Among the requirements is all city-issued phones must be used only for city business. It also requires that employees reimburse the city for text message service or other extras and that the $20 per phone charge by provider Nextel now will be reimbursed to the city by employees.
“If you have a phone that you don’t pay for, the IRS looks at that as income. It was in the (union’s) interest to reimburse the city so there are no issues concerning that,” Ortt explained. “We designated which employees we felt warranted a cell phone whether it was department heads or people in supervisor positions.”
Ortt said when he took office this year there were 51 city phones.
“I think it started benignly enough and then it just started to grow. Before you know it a lot of people had phones,” he said.
The changes are scheduled to begin within a month to coincide with the next billing cycle.
“It prevents abuse and we’re just treating people like adults.”
