Thursday, December 18, 2008
STAFF REPORT
LORDSTOWN — Village council is moving forward with a wage freeze for all but one village employee and cutting all costs where possible.
General Motors eliminated about 900 jobs on the third shift at its Lordstown plant, and has made about 1,100 other layoffs in recent months — totaling about 2,000 job reductions.
The village estimates that about 75 percent to 80 percent of its approximately $4.5 million in income tax collections come from the Lords- town General Motors plants and related industries.
One village worker, Dale Grimm, parks superintendent, is exempt from the wage freeze, officials said, because he is new to his job.
At the village council meeting Monday, council members gave second reading to legislation to establish pay rates for 35 full-time and about 60 part-time workers. The legislation is expected to receive third reading and approval at a special meeting at 9 a.m. Dec. 29, said Bill Blank, Lordstown deputy clerk.
Also then, village council is expected to approve a temporary appropriation to carry the village through the first three months of 2009.
Officials hope to have a clearer picture of the village’s finances by the time final appropriations are made in March, though it knows it stands to lose a substantial amount from the job losses already announced.
General Motors and Chrysler are awaiting a decision from the federal government on whether the government will provide loans to the struggling automakers to avoid bankruptcy or worse.
Mark Ferrara, treasurer of the Lordstown schools, said the school system has an agreement to receive $350,000 per year from GM Lordstown for the next six years as compensation for the tax abatement Trumbull County gave GM when it built its new paint shop.
The school district’s budget is about $8 million.
Nothing that has happened so far would affect those payments, Ferrara said, and the school system doesn’t receive any other revenue from GM. Therefore, the school system doesn’t anticipate any loss of revenue at this time as a result of the automaker’s financial problems, he said.