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Stanislaus County to Cut 124

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When it comes to county budgets there has been a lot of talk about cuts everywhere you go. This has been happening for several reasons. Most directly is the fact that all levels of government have been collecting less in the way of taxes from local resident and businesses in the area. This impacts county budgets both directly and indirectly. As higher levels of government, the state and the federal, take in less they have less to allocate to the lower levels of government. Add to this the end of a lengthy stimulus program that was designed to help give state and local government some time to cope before they had to feel the full brunt of the economic bottoming out and the increasing costs of many of the essential supplies needed to run businesses and governments of all kinds and the job cuts were almost guaranteed to come all over the nation.

Today we are going to look at the case of Stanislaus County, California where job cuts are very likely to happen if, when all is said and done, the workers do not agree to take a pay cut in order to help set the counties staffing budget to right. If all of the unions for the workers in the county do not agree to take the pay cut the 124 workers who are currently employed by the county will be given their walking papers by the time that the next fiscal year begins. The new fiscal year begins on the 1st of July, meaning that an agreement has to be reached in the very near future.  124 workers represent a fair percentage of the 3,736 workers who are currently employed by the county.

Getting these agreements is no small feat when you consider that in order to get all of the workers to agree means negotiating with the leadership of twelve different unions. For the time being the county seems to have made some admirable progress. They have convinced two-thirds of the unions for the workers to agree to the cuts in pay. This only leaves four unions to go. The bad news is that those for unions are actually the strongest, as they represent the greatest number of workers who are currently employed by the county.

A similar notice, with a different percentage of income cuts is currently listed on the county job site. The sites warning reads, “All county employees with the exception of the Treasurer/Tax Collector are participating in a 5% wage/salary deduction with corresponding time off for Fiscal Years 2010-2011 and 2011-2012. The 5% deduction is not reflected in the salaries listed on the County website.” Currently the county is hiring for seven positions with an estimated pay of between $3,163.33 a month for a part time position and $10,136.53 for the highest paying full time job currently offered.

Currently the wage cuts are saving the county about $9.2 million each year. This is an important amount of savings for the county, when you consider that they have a $36 million short fall to deal with in the final budget.

Stanislaus County to Cut 124 by
Authored by: Harrison Barnes