City Hall layoffs will be effective Friday

<p>Planned layoffs become reality Friday for up to 10 Petaluma workers whose jobs were eliminated to cut costs at City Hall.</p><p>The City Council gave final approval Monday for 14 layoffs, although four of those employees have decided to accept a buyout offer and retire early, officials said.</p><p>Three of the remaining 10 are also eligible for the buyout and have until the end of Thursday this week to decide whether to retire early or accept the layoff and look for another job.</p><p>“It’s not a good situation that we’re in,” Mayor Pamela Torliatt said of the city’s budget woes. “We have tried to work with the employees who are affected by this. We hope the best for them and we hope this turns around.”</p><p>More than 80 employees who aren’t scheduled for layoffs are also eligible to retire early and so far 11 have indicated they will do so, said Pamala Robbins, the city’s human resources manager.</p><p>Those 11 employees mostly come from the police, fire and water departments, Robbins said.</p><p>Under state law, buyout offers will be on the table for 90 days, so most eligible employees don’t have to make a decision immediately. A survey of eligible employees found 29 were “seriously interested” in the early retirement offer.</p><p>The immediate savings from the buyouts won’t be totaled until the end of the 90-day period, in late January. It will be up to the City Council to decide how to use the savings.</p><p>In the case of the fire department, however, the city has already agreed to use the salary savings from two early retirements scheduled in December to prevent the planned layoff of a fire inspector.</p><p>The inspector was to be the only member of the fire department laid off, but the Petaluma Firefighters Association agreed to meet with city management to find ways to avoid that scenario.</p><p>Those meetings resulted in the agreement to use the savings from two early retirements in the department for the $91,000 cost of keeping the inspector on board, City Manager John Brown said.</p><p>If more money is needed, the union has agreed to take on a greater share of members’ health care costs, Brown said.</p><p>At Monday’s special meeting, the council approved the layoff plan on a 5-1 vote. Councilmember Mike O’Brien was absent and Councilmember Teresa Barrett cast the dissenting vote.</p><p>Barrett said she remains opposed to designating the laid-off positions as “abolished” on the city payroll instead of “frozen.” Brown has said abolishing positions gives the city flexibility in deciding how to re-tool its services and re-organize its staff.</p><p>The layoffs include the positions of traffic engineer, animal shelter assistant, several custodians and maintenance workers in the public works department.</p><p>Combined with freezing vacant positions, the layoffs will save the city $1.6 million in its $36 million General Fund.</p><p>This week’s layoffs follow an earlier decision to cut 12 employees from the Community Development Department because of lower-than-expected revenue from development in the city.</p><p>In addition, the city will be scaling back other services, including closing City Hall and other non-essential buildings on Fridays, beginning Nov. 7.</p><p>(Contact Corey Young at corey.young@arguscourier.com)</p>