PORT ANGELES — Clallam County officials said 16 more layoffs are needed because of a breakdown in negotiations with its largest union.
The bad news comes as 15 county employees were being laid off this week.
“We are out of time and must immediately build our final 2012 budget,” county Administrator Jim Jones told a crowd of elected officials, department heads, county employees and the public in a work session Monday.
The 16 new layoffs are workers in the Teamsters Local Union No. 589.
The positions are eight in the road department, two in the Auditor’s Office, the equivalent of two positions in health and human services, two in parks and maintenance, one in community development and one half-time position in both juvenile services and clerk.
Last week, Jones presented a final draft budget that had 16 unpaid furlough days to go along with the 15 original layoffs.
Those measures would have cut more than $2 million out of a $2.7 million budget shortfall in the $31.7 million general fund.
Jones reported Monday that Teamsters refused the concessions — furlough days and a one-year hiatus on a cost-of-living pay raise — that would have prevented the 16 additional layoffs.
He said the new layoff notices would go out Tuesday.
“As [union] bumping rights may exist, if any are used, it will change the people component considerably from those who get the notice,” Jones wrote in an email Tuesday morning.
At Tuesday’s commissioners meeting, union member Dale Holiday raised concerns over the Teamsters vote, which was taken by a show of hands Thursday at about 6:15 p.m.
Holiday, who is not a union representative, said “quite a few people wanted to accept the concessions, and yet it did not go that way.”
She said the contracts were provided less than two hours before the vote, and many didn’t expect to be voting that day.
“I heard inaccuracies up to the minute we voted in what people were saying or thinking, and then they voted based on that misinformation,” Holiday said.
Holiday added that some union members didn’t feel safe voting for concessions because they were “intimidated by what I think was a vocal minority.”
“The vote was not fair, it was not accurate, and it was not accessible, and that’s what a vote should be all about,” Holiday said.
More than 30 Teamsters stood up to indicate that they were not satisfied with procedures of the vote.
Commissioners said it would be inappropriate to discuss union negotiations in a public forum.
“My door is open,” said Commissioner Mike Chapman, who is on the county’s bargaining team.
“If a representative of Teamsters wants to, I will be here today, I will be here most of tomorrow.”
The six bargaining units in AFSCME 1619 — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — had tentatively agreed to the accept the concessions.
Those workers will not be impacted by the latest round of layoffs.
Nor will the seven county employees in the Prosecuting Attorneys Association, who have not voted on concessions.
“The bargaining unit initiated contact with the county bargaining team to establish a dialogue that was previously nonexistent,” said Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly in response to an executive summary on the budget that implied that deputy prosecutors were partially responsible for the breakdown of the countywide bargaining process.
“As the countywide budget picture became increasingly fluid and complex, the unit continued to assure the county that it remained committed to bargaining and to reaching agreement for budget reductions.”
Commissioners Tuesday declared a financial exigency and assigned Teamsters to a 37.5-hour work week.
AFSCME members will work 40-hour weeks — unless the hours are otherwise specified for law enforcement and Corrections workers — with 16 furlough days to be taken as unpaid vacation.
“We’ve tried,” Chapman said Monday.
“We tried to save jobs. We gave two-year-guaranteed no layoffs to the Teamsters,” he said.
“We moved people to 40 hours a week. And all we asked for was 16 furlough days and deferred COLA [cost-of-living adjustment] for one year.”
Chapman said the unions that accepted the concessions “got it.”
“We were asking for shared sacrifice in an economy where the whole world’s sacrificing right now,” he said.
“I am beyond frustrated that 30 good people are going to lose their jobs this year through no fault of their own primarily,” Chapman said.
“I was willing to take the pay cut. Jim is willing to take the pay cut. Everybody should have been willing to take a small pay cut to save the family, to save the brotherhood, to save the workers.
“But we couldn’t get there. So it is what it is, and there’s no time.”
Commissioners have scheduled public hearings on the final budget for Tuesday.
The budget has been in a constant flux in recent weeks and months.
Beyond massive cuts to state funding, Clallam County is taking a $2 million-per-year hit in interest income that likely isn’t coming back, commissioners have said.
The county is also running out of a reserve fund that was built up in better economic times. The reserves are used to make payroll and cover emergencies.
Law and justice departments have proposed a one-tenth-of-1-percent sales tax for the February ballot to provide mandated public safety services.
“Thirty people are going to lose their jobs,” Chapman said.
“And that is a shame and a travesty.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
