Resolution OKs JFS restructuring

By Peter H. Milliken

Nobody at JFS has been furloughed yet, the director says.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners have authorized reorganization and job abolitions at the county’s Department of Job and Family Services.

The commissioners’ resolution, however, does not give a specific number of positions to be abolished — nor does it name any specific jobs to be removed from the department’s roster.

Commissioners John A. McNally IV and David N. Ludt voted in favor of the resolution Thursday. Commissioner Anthony T. Traficanti was absent.

The move was triggered by a combined loss of $5 million in state and federal funds at the local JFS.

McNally said earlier this week that he believes some layoffs at the county’s Department of Job and Family Services are almost inevitable this year due to that loss. He projected 10 to 14 of the 303 JFS workers will be furloughed.

Nobody at JFS has been laid off yet, said Judee L. Genetin, JFS acting director.

Thursday’s resolution authorizes discussions that actually began last Friday between JFS management and labor union leaders concerning job abolishments and layoffs and reorganization to make the department more efficient in response to the funding losses.

“With fewer staff to handle client issues, you can expect delays,” in service, McNally said.

“The child support agency is limping along as it is, short-handed,” said Stephen A. Kurimski III, a caseworker in JFS’ child support enforcement agency, who was hired in the spring of 2007.

“I find it pretty sad that there was no foresight to this. We’re looking at layoffs, and yet you guys approved union contracts. You approved raises within the last few months,” Kurimski told the commissioners.

“There needs to be more done and more look into this before we jump the gun,” he added.

George J. Tablack, county administrator and budget director, denied any lack of foresight by county officials. JFS has been under a hiring freeze since January 2008, and it has saved about $400,000 over the past year by keeping management positions vacant, Tablack said.

Numerous Ohio urban counties have already made substantial cuts and laid people off in JFS and CSEA, Tablack said.

The hiring freeze was imposed in anticipation of the funding cuts, Genetin said, with the first of several cuts coming last October.

“If we’re successful in obtaining concessions [at JFS], one of the provisions will probably be that we obtain similar type efficiencies from other departments in the county as well,” Tablack said.

After the meeting, some of a group of more than a dozen members of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3577 at CSEA, who attended the commissioners’ meeting, gathered around Tablack for an impromptu discussion with him concerning the county’s finances.

In other action, the commissioners awarded a $40,714 water supply line extension project on McCartney Road in Coitsville Township to J.S. Paris Excavating Inc. of North Jackson.

They also awarded a $79,780 contract to Butch and McCree Paving Inc. of Hillsville, Pa., for a street drainage improvement project on Kimberly Avenue and Baker Street in Austintown.

Both projects are federally funded and work on them will start in the spring.

milliken@vindy.com