The first round of layoff notices have been given out to state workers as Governor Dannel Malloy works to confront looming deficits.
A total of 165 state employees at the Departments of Children and Families and Mental Health and Addiction Services received pink slips on Monday.
A statement from the governor's budget office said the layoffs will save $27.6 million and affect employees who are unionized and non-unionized.
At DCF, 106 staff received the notices. Another 59 workers at DMHAS also got pink slips.
A spokesman for AFSCME Council 4 said the majority of DCF layoffs were staff at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown. The governor's budget office said the positions affected include sixty-five youth service officers, seven teachers, and four vocational instructors.
In the last two years, the number of youth at CJTS has decreased by 64 percent acciording to DCF.
In a statement, the Executive Director of Council 4 AFSCME Sal Luciano said:
The layoffs at CJTS are not being handled humanely at all. …The administration’s actions today have not only violated our members’ contractual rights, but have placed the safety and security of staff and residents at even greater risk.
SEIU Local 2001 also released a statement saying:
…the layoffs of youth service officers, clinicians, teachers and support staff at the Connecticut Juvenile Training School will do much to damage the learning environment at the school and put the remaining staff and students at greater risk from the sometimes violent youth offenders.
Governor Malloy said:
The individuals affected today are not at fault. This is a difficult process – for state government and for all of our employees. But it’s one that nevertheless must occur as we adapt to our new economic reality. State government cannot provide all the services it has always delivered. We must align spending with revenue. We must ensure government provides its core services while living within its means. And we must budget based not on what we wish we had, but on the dollars we actually have available to spend. We must step up and lead by making difficult decisions now to improve our outlook down the road.
Malloy’s budget office says employees who received layoff notices will be paid their salary and maintain all their State-provided benefits throughout the contractual notice period.
Malloy has said up to 2,000 layoffs may be necessary. The new fiscal year that begins July 1 is estimated to be as much as $933 million in deficit.
This report includes information from The Associated Press.
