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Union agrees to unpaid days off
Lawrence County officials said they will lay off members of the other employee union.
NEW CASTLE, Pa. — One of two unions representing Lawrence County employees has agreed to take 10 unpaid days off between now and the end of the year.
Lawrence County Commissioner Steve Craig said Tuesday that members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees voted Monday to accept the contract concession which commissioners had requested.
The other union which represents county employees, Laborers Union Local 964, declined to vote on the furlough proposal when they met last week. Commissioners said Tuesday that this leaves them with no alternative but to lay off that union’s members according to seniority under Local 964’s contract provisions.
About half the county’s 400 employees are represented by unions. How the nonunion positions will be cut must also be determined.
Commissioners said they will be working over the next few days to determine how they will cut personnel costs for the last quarter of the year. They recessed Tuesday’s meeting and said they will meet over the next few days in executive session with department heads, the county solicitor and the county’s labor attorneys before reconvening to announce cuts. The reconvened meeting will be announced in a legal advertisement 24 hours ahead of time. Craig said it could be by the end of the week or early next week.
The county is facing a budget shortfall for the last quarter of 2009 because the normal flow of state funds to the county for many programs has stopped with the failure of the Pennsylvania Legislature to pass a 2009-10 budget when the fiscal year ended June 30. This has caused financial problems for the county which has to pay personnel and keep state-funded programs running with county money.
Craig said that despite reports that the state legislature and Gov. Edward Rendell have reached agreement on a state budget proposal, it will still take some time before the budget is actually passed and state funds start coming to the county again. He said the state must still hold budget hearings before voting on the proposal.
In addition, commissioners have not had any word on what cuts have been made to existing programs for the new fiscal year, but they expect them to be severe. The commissioners would like to see the expenditure part of the budget proposal so they would know what the county will be receiving. But as of Tuesday, they hadn’t heard anything from Harrisburg.
Earlier this month, commissioners passed an early-retirement option for employees age 62 and older as a way to save money.