Amador County – The Amador County Board of Supervisors held a budget workshop Tuesday to discuss potential layoffs with the return of a 40-hour work week in the budget.
Negotiations continue with an employee group, and three other employee groups’ agreements expire in September. Supervisor Brian Oneto said Assessor Jim Rooney told supervisors he could not function with three employees gone and he got to keep two positions, and lost one. He said all departments are cut. “Facilities” is taking a $250,000 cut, custodians and maintenance workers who take care of all buildings. Information Technology has $320,00 in cuts: that’s four people, Oneto said.
The District Attorney faces a $220,00 cut, the Sheriff has two deputies positions empty that he will not fill, and expense reduction of $37,000. Building Department faces $300,000 in cuts.
Rooney said he thought the board decided to allow two of his positions to remain. County Administrative Officer Chuck Iley said he marked it as a question. Supervisor John Plasse said deficit spending has got to stop, and finalizing the county budget depends on the state budget.
Iley said the “Basic Aid” issue addressed by Alyson Huber’s Assembly Bill 1191, will be heard in a Senate subcommittee today (set for 10 a.m. to noon, Wednesday, May 23). Iley said: “I think the Senate will do whatever the subcommittee does.”
Plasse and Forster, who testified at Legislative hearings, said it was not looking good for the bill. Forster said “I’m not counting on that money right now.” Plasse said there was very little support from the House. Forster thanked the Service Employees International Union for having its business agent, Steve Briscoe engaged on the issue.
Briscoe said he represents 200 employees in Amador County and the final budget is a work in progress. Briscoe urged Supervisors to take the 24 percent in reserves to address budget shortfalls. He said employee concessions of 10 percent over three years total $1.3 million in savings a year.
Plasse said the board made it available to choose a 36-hour work week or go to layoffs, and employees voted for the short week. Briscoe agreed, but pointed out that other counties have 8-9 percent in reserve. Plasse said that is not the same when the larger counties’ reserve is bigger because they have much larger budgets.
Forster agreed with Briscoe, that they won’t get a final state budget until September, or after governor’s budget initiative. He said if it succeeds in cutting education that means basic aid would continue for quite a while.
One woman asked if county employees voted for 36-hour work weeks, that the county would have fewer cuts. Iley said he was not sure it would offset all of the cuts, but it would address most of them.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
