Job Cuts and Closures in New York Mental Health System

It looks like more bad news is coming to the workers of the state of New York. This time the job cuts are coming to the Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center.  According to information presented by the New York State Office of Mental Health the facility will be making job cuts and closing at least two of its wards. In addition the facility will have third ward moved to the Hutchings Psychiatric Center located in Syracuse, New York.

At the current moment we do know that the changes will begin right away, but they will not go into affect by the end of the next 30 days. These wards closing will have an impact on a number of jobs, but at the current moment there is no solid word on how many jobs will be impacted by the changes to the facility.

That having been said the Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center will, for the time being, not be closed completely. The facility will still continue working as a state-operated residential and outpatient services facility. The medical center will also keep the inpatient unit for Children and Youth up and running, according to the information in the official release.

Currently the rest of the details about the layoffs are not being released, but this is not the first bit of budgetary problems encountered by the workers in the state of New York. Some of you may recall the recent issues in Nassau County  they recently had, ”a round of mass layoffs put several hundred Nassau County workers out of a job this week. On the bright side it was not the expected 400 workers who are out of a job, but instead of 262 civil servants. While this is still a high number of layoffs it is not as bad as it could have been.

The bad news is that most of the workers be let go were from departments such as social services, public works and probation. According to the union most of the workers who were let go were the lower paid ones in the county, as a matter of fact some of the lowest paid workers on the payroll.

In addition another 137 worker were demoted, with the expected pay cuts.

The county executives are blaming the union for not being flexible enough with the county. County Executive Mangano made the following statement to NBC New York, “While it pains me to see anyone lose their job, I informed Nassau’s unions months ago that layoffs would occur if they didn’t provide the concessions needed to protect residents from a tax hike.”

Of course, the union does not support this position and they told the same reporter the following, “Blaming us is just an excuse”, said CSEA union president Jerry Laricchuita. They are insisting that a tax hike of about 25 cents a day would have held the layoffs at bay. For those of you who are interested that would be a tax increase of about $91.25 each year for every taxpayer.”