BOC to vote Tues. on cutting staff hours

Yearwood told employees and managers at a series of three meetings Wednesday that on Tuesday night he would ask the BOC to cut the county workweek to 37.5 hours and to furlough all employees one day per month.

The cuts are for the current fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 but could be extended if the economy doesn’t turn around by then.

For the employees, the reductions amount to a pay loss of 10.62 percent, according to Chief Administrator Keith Lee.

For the county government, the savings over the next eight months would total $1.3 million, plus the FICA and Medicare taxes saved on that income.

That is about half the anticipated $2.7 million gap between anticipated revenues and expenses for the fiscal year, Yearwood said.

That projected shortfall does not include another $1.1 million in Homestead Tax Relief Grant funding that Gov. Sonny Perdue has withheld until the General Assembly takes a second look during the upcoming session. The county anticipates receiving that money this year, but it is not guaranteed.

“If this doesn’t fix it, we’ll have to take the next step,” Yearwood said. “But what we’re trying to do is save 50 jobs.

“It would be a lot easier to go to each department head and say, ‘Give me two people you don’t need; we’ll put them on the street.’ We’re taking this extra step in trying to preserve you being here,” he told the employees at the first meeting.

In addition to the reduced hours, overtime pay will stop for everyone other than for public safety or jail personnel whose regular schedules include planned overtime. The county has paid an average of $36,000 per month for overtime since the fiscal year began Oct. 1.

The chairman was particularly pointed about that issue during the managers’ meeting.

“In December, we paid $27,547 in overtime after the board said there will be no overtime. It’s going to get to the point that what is said at the board meetings is going to be carried out, or someone is going to answer for it,” he said.

Yearwood told all three groups of employees that he alone could not make the cuts. But it was evident from comments by commissioners at the meetings that the measures are likely to pass Jan. 13. District 1 Commissioner Larry Joe Wilburn and District 2 Commissioner Eva Elder, who took office with Yearwood on Jan. 1, were at all three meetings.

Said Wilburn: “You may not realize it, but whatever salary you draw, we pay another 30 percent in benefits. This is not vindictive. But whatever we decide to do, it’s got to come out of salaries.”

Said Elder: “I want you to know it’s not your fault we are in this position and we are very sorry for the decisions we are having to make, but we can’t help ourselves… Sometimes the good suffer with the bad.”

At the afternoon managers meeting, District 4 Commissioner Isaiah Berry said Yearwood’s proposal is worth trying.

“Let’s try this for a while,” he said. “We’ve obviously got to start somewhere and do something. Here is a beginning and we can come back and tweak it if we have to.”

District 4 Commissioner Billy Parks and District 6 Commissioner Ben Hendrix attended the managers meeting but didn’t comment. District 3 Commissioner Steve Worley was at work and could not attend any of the meetings.

The chairman prefaced his announcements of pay cuts to each group by reading from a two-page financial summary of the county’s current financial status. According to that document, the county expects to receive $3.3 million less revenue than budgeted for the current fiscal year.

The difference between actual revenues actual expenses is expected to be $2.5-$2.7 million.

PUBLIC SAFETY

While employees and managers at the meetings generally seemed to prefer the coming cuts to possible layoffs, a recurrent concern expressed at the meetings was the impact of the cutbacks on public safety services.

A female employee in the county’s 911 department told Yearwood that with the hiring freeze, it already is difficult to man the emergency communication office 24 hours a day.

Yearwood responded: “There’s going to be some scheduling problems to start with, but emergency services are not exempt from anything I’m implementing. But I would rather approach it from this angle than to go in and start saying we don’t have the money to fund your job and you’ve got to go.”

The county’s new sheriff said hours later at the manager’s meeting that the cutbacks could become a liability for the county.

“If I furlough, you are looking at three to four people per shift that are going to be off,” Smith said. “I don’t want the county to get into a predicament where someone is injured and finds out we didn’t have enough people working. The county is going to write a big check with a lot of zeros.”

Yearwood said that for the cutbacks to save jobs, every department would have to participate.

“We’re not going to provide the service we’ve been providing,” he said flatly.

He pointed out that 55.39 percent of the county’s budget goes to public safety.

“If we exclude the sheriff and EMS and 911, we would have to take 2.6 days a month off as furlough. That’s about one day a week. We just can’t do that,” Yearwood said. “I know you elected officials, I apologize for doing this, for putting you in this position, but I don’t have a choice.”

Yearwood said that while he doesn’t have the power to cut the hours of elected officials, he is asking them to make sure their employees comply.

“I’m asking y’all to please see that they comply with what everybody else in the county is doing.”

Lee and CFO Beth Horacek said they will adjust the budgets of all departments to ensure compliance is across the board.

After the managers meeting, the sheriff said he agrees with Yearwood’s effort but wants to make sure citizens and his employees are protected.

“I want to make sure, Number 1, that each employee is going to have a job, but at the same time be able to provide the services that the citizens of Barrow County deserve. I want to make sure we are in line with that, that the sheriff’s office provides the services we provide and that the citizens are not going to be left out in the cold or put in jeopardy.”

Smith added, “My priority as sheriff is the safety of citizens and their welfare and then to look after the people that work in the sheriff’s office.”

It was apparent during Wednesday’s meetings that the details of Yearwood’s plan have not been finalized. He said he planned to give managers some leeway in working out the details as long as the financial savings are realized.