EDITORIAL

The move to lift a residency requirement for all city employees is back on the docket of the City Council.

The latest bill is being sponsored by City Council Member Tony Avella, who reported that at least 75 percent of municipal workers are either exempt or have waivers to live outside the city limits. So why not eliminate the regulations altogether?

By law, city employees are mandated to be residents of the city. Avella thinks that there might have been some logic to this decades ago, but not in today's marketplace.

When State Sen. Joseph Addabbo was a City Council member, he chaired the Civil Service and Labor Committee and introduced a bill that would allow all city employees to live outside the city. Addabbo has said that his efforts in this matter would continue in the state legislature.

Requiring city employees to live within the city limits has been called discriminatory by some. Others claim that it is an impediment to the progress of people trying to move up to a better life for themselves and their families.

There was a time when people wanted city jobs for the security they offered. The pay scale was usually less than in the private sector, but time has altered that equation.

In today's weak economy, city jobs stand tall. Their unions are strong and various departments in civil service, such as police, fire and sanitation, present attractive packages that also include generous health benefits and pension plans—things now in short supply in the private sector.

By permitting city workers to live outside the confines of the five boroughs, the city loses a strong tax base. People who live in the City of New York have city taxes taken out of their paychecks. Those who reside outside the limits pay no city taxes.

Every so often, an attempt is made to tax the non-residents who earn their living in the city. But inevitably, the effort becomes an exercise in futility.

Besides financial considerations, there's the effect on the pool for jury duty. When people who work for the city are able to live elsewhere, it shrinks the pool of potential jurors in the city's courtrooms. Taking a middle-class segment out of the picture does not help the system of justice.

Similarly, there's a significant impact on the voting process. City candidates always seem to cater to the union membership of city employees, though many of the members can't vote in city elections. Try to figure that one out.

The one positive for maintaining and enforcing—without exception—the rule of city employees having to live within the city limits would be the decrease of traffic. Fewer commuters would mean fewer vehicles on the roadways.

It's quite pointless to keep the current patchwork quilt of residency requirements that are more effective in granting exemptions than forcing compliance.

When it comes to unenforceable laws on the books, losing one would hardly make them less than plentiful.