Thursday morning,  Huntington’s retired and working firemen, policemen and families gathered on the steps of City Hall to discuss the possible future of layoffs to their departments. Bystanders honked their horns in solidarity with these men and women.

They came to discuss their contracts with Mayor Steve Williams in their departments. Brian Lucas spoke on behalf of the Huntington Police Department.

“In November of 2015, the mayor told us to form two committees — one committee would look at adjustments of the city’s employees’ insurance plan and the other would look at revenue,” Lucas said.

Lucas continued, stating the committee to address revenue was never formed. For the 2016 fiscal year budget, insurance claims are $6.7 million for the police department, but, for the current year, the mayor only budgeted $5.8 million.

“We believe that this decision was made in order to pay unnecessary alarm to be used in negotiations,” Lucas said.

The city of Huntington is in debt $3 million and, according to Lucas, is “now playing catch up on missed payments from last year’s and this year’s budget.”

Lucas said the police department has offered to forgo pay raises to alleviate this problem.

He urged Williams to “do his job properly and identify revenue sources for the city to fund the central services.”

Lucas concluded his statement by warning the public that with less cops, firemen and compliance officers coupled with “more needles” will only make the city more dangerous.

The police department has 109 police officers. With these layoffs, they could be losing up to 32 police officers, leaving only 77 officers on the force. Layoffs occur in reverse-majority, leaving newest officers to be laid off. The fire department could lose 36 employees, leaving 59 firefighters to the department.

Ray Canafax of the fire department said with these layoffs, there could possibly be up to two fire stations closing.

“Anytime you take firefighters or fire stations out of the community, you are putting citizens at risk,” Canafax said.

After the press conference, Williams held a responding press conference urging the police and fire departments to “bring me a plan.”

“I am not proposing budget cuts or layoffs. Nothing has been proposed by the administration. We have not proposed the first layoff,” Williams said.

“I have ordered [to the police and fire departments] to bring me a plan,” Williams said. “I haven’t directed the first layoff. I have directed them to show me how to reduce the budget.”

Williams advises the departments to balance their budgets.

As with the police officers forgoing wages, Williams said he would “adjust his salary accordingly.”

City Council met Thursday night to discuss the issue.

Saddie Helmick can be contaced at [email protected]