Each Commissioner has been tasked with submitting an agency budget with reductions that reflect the Governor's Budget proposals (basically an overall reduction of 5.75% and the elimination of certain programs). The Commissioners are expected to have their plans for achieving the 5.75% reduction finalized and submitted this week.
It is anticipated that the reduction plans submitted by the Commissioners will include layoffs at several agencies. Today, the Office of Labor Relations gave official notification to the Unions to expect layoffs in the near future.
On Monday, Commissioner Semple (Department of Corrections) released a memo to all DOC employees and held a meeting to discuss the reduction plan for DOC. While it was not specific as to how many layoffs or which units would be affected, it was clear that the Governor is pressing for drastic reductions which have the clear impact of layoffs. DOC gave a wide range of possible layoffs from 100 to 600.
There will be more announcements over the course of the next couple of weeks. The Governor has not met with the Unions at all. There have been no discussions about the layoffs and no discussions about mitigating layoffs.
The Governor will be speaking about his Budget at the UConn Law School Wednesday March 8 at 7:00. If there is any possible way for you to attend this forum, please do so! Stand Together A&R.
-3/9/16