New York City is not laying off fat cat administrators. It is laying off people lower down the food chain, including lots of school aides, health care workers, civilian police aides, and library workers, as well as police officers and firefighters. It is also laying off lower level supervisors like Steve. If they are not ready or able to retire, they will bump the people beneath them, or they will take those so-called management positions which carry no union benefits and no civil service protection. Don't suppose for a moment that this is anything but part of a plan to break the municipal unions, which in a city like New York have wielded considerable power for generations. Whether they have always used that power for good is another question, of course, but the fact is the Republican administration (along with quite a few Democrats) want to strip the unions of that power.