{"id":663596,"date":"2025-12-31T00:43:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/663596\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T00:43:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:43:15","slug":"london-mayor-city-council-clash-over-budget-as-employees-face-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/663596\/","title":{"rendered":"London mayor, city council clash over budget as employees face layoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) &#8211; A heated dispute between London Mayor Randall Weddle and the city council escalated Tuesday as council members overrode the mayor\u2019s vetoes on several ordinances, including an amended budget that could result in the layoffs of 87 city employees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The council called a special meeting to address Weddle\u2019s vetoes from earlier this month. During the session, council members voted to override each veto one by one, including the controversial budget amendment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><b>PREVIOUS: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wkyt.com\/2025\/12\/17\/london-mayor-city-council-spar-over-budget-amendment-mayor-claims-will-result-mass-layoffs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wkyt.com\/2025\/12\/17\/london-mayor-city-council-spar-over-budget-amendment-mayor-claims-will-result-mass-layoffs\/\"><b>London mayor, city council spar over budget amendment the mayor claims will result in mass layoffs<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"link | text-reset d-block h-100 w-100\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wkyt.com\/page\/wkyt-apps-for-ios-and-android-devices\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_self\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"WKYT Streaming Apps\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1767141795_467_MEPHTWNVMREWLEQQWWFJM27ZMA.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a>Budget cuts target first responders and city workers<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Weddle said the amended budget will force layoffs of firefighters, police officers, road workers and other city employees. He warned the cuts would reduce the city\u2019s workforce to levels not seen since 1995, despite significant population growth since then.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe\u2019re probably going to lose out of 130 employees, I might be down to 15 left. The city can\u2019t operate,\u201d Weddle said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The mayor said he has not been given a reason for the new budget and criticized the council\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWhen you do a budget, you include money that you\u2019ve already spent and then the money that you\u2019re proposing for the following remainder of time you\u2019ve amended that budget for. Council has not done that in this case,\u201d Weddle said.<\/p>\n<p>Employees file lawsuit as deadline approaches<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">More than 80 city employees are filing a wrongful termination lawsuit and making other complaints against the city council. Attorney Emily Campbell, who represents the employees, said there is hope a judge will halt the ordinance affecting workers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cA lot of these folks that we\u2019ve talked to that we now represent, some of them are the only income for their home, some of them have spouses battling cancer and this is their insurance, so this isn\u2019t just something that affects these employees, it affects a lot of families,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Weddle said the budget changes will go into effect next Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">City council members referred requests for comment to their attorney, who has not returned calls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WKYT. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) &#8211; A heated dispute between London Mayor Randall Weddle and the city council escalated Tuesday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,1194,40092,60055,393,4884,257,16131,7743,115771,202646,16,15,198747,202647],"class_list":{"0":"post-663596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-budget","10":"tag-city-council","11":"tag-clash","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-mayor","16":"tag-meeting","17":"tag-randall","18":"tag-randall-eddle","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-veto","22":"tag-vetoes"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115811411897448100","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}