Layoffs in excess of 400 employees were recently announced at the Department of Developmental Services (DDS). The layoffs are largely the result of an agency decision to privatize 20 group homes. This continues the agency’s trend toward privatization, with nearly two-thirds of state-run group homes to be privatized. No A&R titles have been impacted by the DDS layoffs thus far. The expectation is that there will be some level of impact to A&R, but DDS has not informed us of any A&R positions that will be impacted by layoff. We are monitoring the situation and remain cautiously optimistic.
Starting in October of 2015 the governor began to advocate for state employee reductions. The reductions, he claimed, were necessary to balance the budget over a 3 year span. At various times he used words and phrases such as “austerity”, “new economic reality”, and “fiscal cliff” to justify staff reductions which were to occur through retirements, layoffs, and attrition. From the beginning, the Governor has used a vague target of between 1,500 and 4,500 staff reductions as necessary to balance the FY16, FY17, and FY18 budgets. So far, retirements have been a large part of the reductions. Nearly 2,000 employees have chosen to retire so far in 2016, an increase of more than 25% over 2015. Several of our laid-off employees have benefited from these retirements, allowing them to re-enter the A&R workforce. Of the 35 A&R members receiving layoff notices, 14 were able to fill a vacant position and remain employed throughout the process, and an additional 9 employees were re-called after severance to fill vacancies occurring due to retirements. We are hopeful that all impacted members can be re-absorbed into the workforce as retirements continue, unfortunately we still have 8 unemployed members.
The first projections for FY17 will be released in September, 2016 and we await to see if further cuts will be imposed by the Governor. As of July, 26 agencies had notified the Governor's office that further layoffs would not be necessary. In August, Comptroller Lembo reported a general fund deficit of $279.4 million for Fiscal Year 2016, which he noted was "an improvement" of $36.4 million from prior projections. But, in the same report, he expressed concern over the "continued volatility of income tax receipts".
Agency plans for FY17 were obtained by CTMirror.org and are listed below: