pboyum@statesboroherald.com
Budget woes affecting the city of Statesboro were the driving force behind the city council’s Tuesday morning decision to furlough city employees for the remainder of the fiscal year.
The furloughs, which are a like a temporary layoff, will start this month for all city personnel. There will be two tiers: employees making less than $60,000 annually will be required to take a half-day off each month without pay while those making more than $60,000 will have to take a full day without pay.
For hourly employee outside of police and fire services, a half-day will equal four hours of pay and a full day will equal eight hours, even if the employee is a shift worker putting in 10 or 12-hour days. Because police technically work 43 hour weeks, a half-day for those employees will equal 4.3 hours and a full day 8.6 hours. And because firefighters work 24 hours on and 48 hours off, their half-days will equal 5.6 hours with a full day equaling 11.2 hours.
Councilman Will Britt offered the motion to furlough employees, which the council passed by a unanimous vote. He said the consensus among city leaders was not to lay anyone off because it would be difficult for any employee faced with that situation to find a job in this economy.
“This is not a fix, but this is a help,” Britt said. “It is this body making a decision that everybody is going to be affected. The whole goal is to not lay anyone off and to get a balanced budget so we don’t have to consider furloughs next year.”
City Manager Shane Haynes gave credit to department heads for deeply cutting their budgets in response to revenue projections that have not been realized this fiscal year. He said that after cutting the budget and capital expenditures, the city was faced with cutting into its biggest expense — staffing.
“It’s not something we want to do, it’s nothing our department heads want to do, the mayor and council certainly don’t want to do it and I certainly don’t want to do it,” Haynes said. “But I think the general consensus is that everyone understands it’s a sign of the economic times that we’re in and people are committed to doing what they have to do, even if it means giving up pay to keep their jobs.
“Our most important asset is our employees, but the converse to that is that our largest cost is our staffing and the associated benefits that go along with that,” Haynes said. “The whole aim and focus has been to preserve jobs long term.”
Haynes said health, dental and life insurance benefits will not be affected by the furloughs. However, employees should expect to see a slight decrease in retirement contributions since they will be paid a few hours less each month. In addition, deductions that are based upon income, such as long-term and short-term disability, will be slightly decreased as well.
Mayor Bill Hatcher reiterated that he and council considered this measure only after deferring projects and capital expenditures they felt were not critical to the city’s current operation level. He also said that there are some projects worth keeping in order to position the city for future growth once the recession has passed.
“We’ve gone over it with a fine-tooth comb to try and determine which things we can delay and which things we can’t,” Hatcher said. “I think it’s important to have infrastructure in place when we do come out of this recession, which hopefully will be before too long. Then we’ll be in a position to capitalize and move forward.”
Statesboro Fire Chief Dennis Merrifield and Police Chief Stan York both declined to comment on the effect the furloughs will have on protection services. They said there were rumors of a possible furlough but, until Tuesday, they were not privy to the specific details of the proposal.
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