Westminster City Government Memo: Westminster cutting 9 jobs

Westminster City Government Memo: Westminster cutting 9 jobs

Date of Release: July 14, 2009
Contact: Marge Wolf
City Administrator
PRESS RELEASE

After the July 14 Common Council meeting. Mayor Thomas K. Ferguson announced a series of personnel and other actions required for the FY2009 fiscal year to facilitate a balanced budget.

"As I have cautioned during the budget deliberations, this has been a challenging year for the City as revenues have declined and expenditures have continued to increase. Our three year operating projections do not indicate this situation will improve significantly in the immediate future. Accordingly, I am reluctantly outlining the steps we have taken to adapt to this financial situation."

Among those changes is the following personnel restructuring. These changes in no way reflect on the performance of the employees but reflect a reorganization of the delivery of services.

1. Two vacant positions in Finance and the Mayor's Office have not been funded.

2. Instead of serving as our own general contractor for affordable housing projects, the City will partner with non-profit housing agencies or for profit developers to undertake these projects. The Housing Rehabilitation Coordinator position will be eliminated.

3. The Code Enforcement Officer and the Section 8 Housing Inspector will bemerged into one position under one property maintenance code. To achieve thischange, the Code Enforcement Officer and Section 8 Housing Inspector positions will be eliminated. A new Code Inspector position will be created.

4. The managerial functions of the Planning Department will be combined with the Director of Planning, Zoning and Development and the Manager of Planningposition will be eliminated.

5. Two certified Administrative Assistant positions (Department of Planning, Zoning and Development and Finance) will be eliminated and one certifiedAdministrative Assistant will be reassigned.

6. The central telephone Operator will be relocated from the Recreation Department to the Administrative Offices at 56 West Main Street.

7. Two Staff Assistant positions will be created.

8. The City Clerk position will be transitioned from a full-time position to a part-time position.

The City has developed a uniform severance package, including pay and insurance benefits, for those employees whose positions have been eliminated. They will also receive support in transitioning to other employment and will be given the information and the opportunity to apply for any of the newly created positions for which they are qualified.

Further, the City of Westminster has instituted a number of changes to the employee benefit package. The employees will be asked to double their contribution to the health care policies from 7% to 14%. The retirees health care benefit package will be modified and employees hired after July 1, 2008, would not be eligible for this benefit. In light of the continuing increases the City is facing for basic utilities and materials, task forces will focus on the following areas to meet these challenges:

• Gasoline consumption will be reviewed and modifications will be made to thetake home vehicle policy, the use of pool cars and reimbursement for the use ofprivate vehicles.

• An energy coordinator will be appointed in each City facility to develop anenergy policy and monitor compliance with that policy.

• By centralizing office supply purchasing and distribution, modifying utilization patterns, and identifying waste patterns the City will reduce our consumption of office supplies.

• The cost of providing employee benefits has been increasing every year. TheHealth Care Committee will a develop a long-term strategy to maintain anemployee benefit package at a reasonable cost both to the City and the employee.

• As was indicated in Mike Evan's presentation to the Mayor and Common
Council, the City needs to increase the recycling rate to decrease our landfill and hauling costs.

20080614 Westminster City Government Memo: Westminster cutting 9 jobs