Pinal County’s Board of Supervisors approved eliminating 160.5 positions this week to cope with falling revenues.
Most of those positions are already vacant, but 42 employees will be laid off June 12.
The full press release follows:
With falling revenues and the ever present need for service provision, the Board of Supervisors approved a budget resolution that will reduce the workforce for Pinal County in FY2010.
The Supervisors voted to eliminate 160.5 positions, the majority being positions that are already vacant and haven’t been filled. On Friday, June 12, 42 employees will be given a notice of lay-off.
“This is not a measure we take lightly,” said Chairman David Snider. “Many private sector companies have been dealing with these issues for the past 18 months. Our workforce was appropriately sized up to this point, but with the truly significant decline in revenues that we’ve seen since last October, we must enter the new budget year with a much leaner and more economical organization. These are good employees who are being let go at no fault of their own.”
District 2 Supervisor Bryan Martyn said that the vote to conduct the reduction in force is a hard choice to make.
“There simply is no easy way to do this,” Supervisor Martyn said. “We are committed to providing quality services. This appears to be the only way to scale our workforce to the workload anticipated in the upcoming months.”
Looking over the budget resolution, Vice-Chairman and District 1 Supervisor Pete Rios asked that there be an effort to bringing the laid-off employees back as soon as possible.
“I echo my colleagues when they say this is a tough decision to make.” Supervisor Rios said. “I would like to ask that when the economy improves, we look at hiring these people back, perhaps looking at them as a priority.”
Pinal County, along with other counties in Arizona, is still unsure to what extent the legislature will dip into their coffers to help balance the state’s budget. There are various budget proposals being bantered about by the legislature and Governor Brewer. The Supervisors are keeping an eye on the daily developments from Phoenix, hoping to have an answer sometime before the county budget comes before the board on June 27.
“The state legislators are exploring lots of strategies that balance the state budget by shipping the counties a truckload of pain with a price tag in the millions,” said Chairman Snider. “We believe the state’s elected leaders need to solve their problems, just as we are solving ours, but they need to do so in a manner that does not effectively and completely disrupt our ability to provide quality services to the residents of Pinal County. We are hoping Governor Brewer will call upon her past experience as a Maricopa County Supervisor to persuade leaders that sending an IOU to Arizona’s counties is not fiscally responsible.”
