06/16/2009: "Council Layoffs & $44,785 “Raises” In Pay"

The County Council will hold a public hearing today (06-15-09) at 2:30 p.m. on $933,000.00 in cuts to the 2009 budget. The council has set up a “two phase” program to address the budget problem.

Phase one is layoffs, and phase two will be take a look at a possible transfer of road funds for use in balancing the budget. The council also has to deal with the county unions in order to make the additional employee cuts.

One problem for the council is their lack of control over the reclassification of job descriptions. and the rate of pay for a new description.

The current contract with the unions allows an employee to petition for a new classification, and if -after review by an in-house committee made up of employee and senior staff- the request is granted, any increased in corresponding pay is paid retroactive back to the day of the request.

Eleven requests have been made, and nine of them were granted by the committee and went up in rating (1 went down & 1 was denied), which results in retroactive pay of $22, 591.00 the county has to come up with; which does not include the extra $13,603.00 needed for the rest of the year to meet the new pay level.

And then there is a reorganization by Public Works of the Solid Waste Division. That resulted in six new positions, three unrelated, plus four more, for a total of $8,591.00 in new costs to the budget.

the Council will vote on passing the ordinance after the public hearing to authorize the budget amendment, and it is expected they will then authorize the County Administrator to send out a new round of layoff notices to employees.