Amador County – The Amador County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will consider layoffs for 8 full-time county employees. In a Friday memo to all employees, Amador County Chief Administrative Officer Terri Daly recommended the 8 positions for layoff, naming the positions. Up for elimination are 2 Building Inspector 1 positions in the Building Department; a Finance & Administrative Supervisor in the Behavioral Health Department; a Public Health Nurse in the Public Health Department; a Web developer position in the Information Technology Department; a Library Assistant 2 position at the Sutter Creek branch of the Amador Library; the Airport Manager position at the Amador Airport; and an Ag Tech position in the Agriculture Department. Daly said “these positions were selected based on analysis of the organization, departments, services, structure and business activity levels.” They were identified as the county administration office looked “to find more efficient ways of operating.” Daly in the memo said the county “started more than 2 years ago looking for ways and implementing measures to be more efficient in delivering our services and to reduce our costs.” The county implemented 3 programs to reduce personnel costs, along with a hiring freeze. Daly said Friday that 27 employees took early retirement last year, while 11 more volunteered for layoffs in the last 2 weeks of December. She said Amador “had a salary savings of about $250,000 from people taking early retirement.” In addition, Daly said about 30 positions were emptied through attrition – “people left for one reason or another and we have just left the positions open.” She said a third program, voluntary furloughs of unpaid days away from work, had been effective, with 125 people participating in the program this year. Daly in the memo said “with all these efforts … we will probably end our year with about a $3 Million deficit, primarily due to dramatically reduced realignment revenues that are dependent on sales tax and vehicle license fees.” Daly said the “deficit will carry forward into next year’s budget and we will have to look for at least that much in expenditure cuts.” She said “because of automatic increases in personnel costs (Cost of Living Adjustments and benefits) and continuing decreases in revenues, we will still be in for a bad year.” She said in the memo that the county has “tried very hard to avoid layoffs, but the situation has become more severe than most people anticipated. We regret that this situation has arrived and assure you that the elimination of any position is no reflection on the individuals affected.” The Board of Supervisors will consider the layoff suggestions in its meeting starting 9 a.m. Tuesday. Story by Jim Reece