TERRE HAUTE —
The Vigo County Council voted 6-1 on Tuesday to offer a buyout package to more than a dozen county employees in order to reduce the county’s work force and save money.
The buyout was offered only to employees doing jobs that will need council approval to be refilled.
“I think this was the best savings for the county,” said Kathy Miller, president of the County Council, speaking after the Tuesday evening council meeting in the Vigo County Annex.
About 40 county employees expressed an interest in the buyout plan. However, about half of them are in positions that are not subject to a county government hiring freeze, meaning department heads could refill their jobs without asking the council’s permission.
Judith Anderson, one of three Vigo County commissioners, told the seven-member council that the commissioners supported a different buyout plan than the one approved by the council. The plan supported by the commissioners would have offered the buyout plan to all county employees wanting to take the buyout offer.
“We would prefer that the buyout be for all 40 or 42 employees,” Anderson told the council before their vote. Even if those positions are all refilled, the new employees would likely be hired at a lower salary and may not sign up for the county’s insurance plan; that would still result in a net savings for the county, she said.
Still, the council voted for the other option.
Under the buyout plan passed by the council, participating county employees will stop reporting to work after this week. They will then receive the remainder of their annual salary for 2010 and also their remaining 2010 insurance coverage and other benefits. They will also continue to receive their public employee retirement contributions from the county until the end of the year, county officials said.
In return, the employees must agree not to seek unemployment benefits and cannot be rehired by the county in the future, Anderson said.
The combined annual salaries of everyone who may now take part in the buyout is about $716,000, said County Auditor Tim Seprodi. If the county hires new people to fill 10 of those positions, the annual savings to the county in 2011 will be about $170,000 and about $400,000 in 2012, he said.
If all of the positions are left vacant, the county would see an annual savings of the full $716,000 annually beginning in 2012, Seprodi said.
The cost of buying out the 19 employees will be about $588,000.
Mark Bird, the lone vote against the buyout, objected before the vote to the idea of buying out employees only recently hired by the county.
“Some [employees] have worked less than a year or two,” Bird said. “We’re just going to basically pay them to take five months off. Personally, I just don’t understand that,” he said during council discussion.
The goal of the buyout package is to reduce the county’s work force, save money and avoid firing people, county officials said.
“The alternative to the buyout, of course, we all know what that is, it’s the termination of people,” Anderson said. “That’s the reason we asked for volunteers.”
Vigo County Clerk Pat Mansard told the council her department is already short-staffed and would be badly harmed by the loss of additional employees through the buyout. Mansard believes five or six employees in her department will take the buyout offer.
“The people that are left are the ones under a lot of stress,” Mansard said. “It’s not fair and equitable.”
Rehiring people to fill the positions vacated by the buyout is not out of the question, Miller said after the meeting.
“We’re going to have to work together with those department heads and hear them out and move forward together,” Miller said. Even with the savings from the buyout, the county still has to make more cuts to balance the 2011 budget, she said.
“This only gets us partway,” Miller said. “We’re still looking at cutting more out of areas and hopefully getting to a balanced budget,” she said.
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com
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