Kent city officials plan to cut enough jobs by Nov. 30 to save the city more than $3.2 million next year as sales tax and other revenues continue to decline.
“I’m close to a number, but I don’t know yet how many full-time equivalent employees it will be,” said John Hodgson, city chief administrative officer, in a phone interview Friday.
City department directors will hand out layoff notices Oct. 21, Hodgson said. The layoffs will be effective Nov. 30.
Michelle Witham, city community and public affairs manager, said on Monday that Mayor Suzette Cooke did not want to release the exact number of layoffs until she meets with the City Council at a workshop to present her 2010 preliminary budget at 4 p.m. Oct. 22 at City Hall. Cooke also will announce any cuts in city services at that meeting.
Hodgson said after a Council workshop last month that every $1 million in cuts generally equals about 13 employees, but that number can vary depending how much the city saves in supply costs if it cuts a specific service or program. About 75 percent of the costs for a city service covers staff and 25 percent goes for supplies.
Salaries and benefits for city employees comprised about $65 million of the $80.8 million general fund budget for 2009.
If sales tax, utility taxes and building permit fee revenue shortfalls continue, the city might announce a second round of layoffs before the end of the year.
“If revenues are less than projected, we will make a second set of adjustments in mid-November or late November,” Hodgson said.
Cooke said at a Council workshop last month that no cuts would be made in the police or fire departments, but other departments would need to cut costs from anywhere between 10 to 15 percent.
In addition to the November job cuts, the city laid off five employees Sept. 30 because of a lack of work, Hodgson said. Three employees were cut in the community development department and two were cut in employee services.
The city had avoided layoffs most of the year in part because all four Kent city unions as well as a group of non-represented employees voted early in the year to take pay cuts for the rest of 2009. Those actions by employees saved the city about $1.3 million this year.
The city’s more than 200 non-union workers recently voted to take five-day furloughs next year, Hodgson said.
City officials are meeting with the city unions over the next two weeks to see what the union leaders and membership might agree to as far as pay cuts next year that could help save some jobs.
“We hope to know before Oct. 22 as far as their willingness of what to do,” Hodgson said about the unions.
The unions include the Kent Firefighters Union Local 1747, the Kent Police Officers Association, Teamsters Local 117 that represents public works, parks and facilities employees, and Local 2617 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) that represents administrative staff, corrections workers and building inspectors.
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