Montgomery County to Cut Behavioral Health Jobs

The Behavioral Health/Developmental Disabilities Program of Montgomery County is one that most of you are less than likely to be familiar with, unless you have been in need of their services, and you live in the correct geographic region.  Since that rules out most of you lets begin by taking a look at how the program has chosen to describe itself, “The Behavioral Health/Developmental Disabilities Program provides a variety of services to eligible Montgomery County residents.  These services are provided by county staff, or by vendors contracted by Montgomery County.  Individual eligibility for services and funding is determined by county, state and federal guidelines.”

Sadly this group, which services people badly in need of mental health assistance, is going to have to cut back on workers in order to set its budget to right. The plan, which is impacting an as yet unspecified number of workers, is going into effect in January, leaving the workers some time to plan for their new lives.

This kind of lag time before a budget cut is enough to make one suspicious of a mass layoff action, in terms of the numbers of jobs cut. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.” Under the terms of a mass layoff action the employer must give several weeks of notice before cutting workers from the payrolls and sending them to the unemployment line.

This is not the only mental health organization to make job cuts to stay fiscally solvent. For those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage of cuts to Boys Town here is an excerpt that will get you up to speed in no time at all, “Sadly this organization has to cut back on workers in order to make its funding work. The south Florida location is getting ready to drop about 81 jobs. The company filed a WARN notice with the state in order to prepare for a mass layoff action…”

Also, some of you may recall our earlier coverage of job cuts to another mental health provider that is geared towards children and teens, “…a program called YouthConnect… Well apparently the company has decided that they can do that without about 100 of its workers, as they are getting ready to close their psychiatric residential treatment program at the end of the summer. This kind of a job cut will, in addition to leaving many young boys looking for a new source of  mental health care, qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines.”

Hiring in the healthcare industry is a ongoing process, qualified job seekers can apply here.