PINE BLUFF -- Elected officials in Jefferson County have until Monday to come up with an alternative plan to trim budgets by 30%.
Otherwise, the county will furlough employees to come up with a 30% reduction in payroll.
Last week, the Jefferson County Quorum Court passed an emergency ordinance that requires a 30% cut in the workforce by forcing employee furloughs.
But the Quorum Court members worked out a compromise at the last minute on Tuesday, giving elected officials time to come up with another plan to cut their budgets by a like amount.
The original ordinance, which would have compelled across-the-board cuts in all county offices, was opposed by a number of county elected officials, including Sheriff Lafayette Woods Jr., Collector Tony Washington and Assessor Yvonne Humphrey.
The ordinance was drafted after County Judge Gerald Robinson was unsuccessful in getting elected officials to agree to a temporary 30% cutback on staffing.
The need for cutbacks became obvious, Robinson said, after a financial projection from the Arkansas Association of Counties showed an estimated 26.5% drop in state revenue to counties for the rest of the year because of the coronavirus, which has tanked the economy.
Robinson said the furlough option was the best alternative for employees because it would allow them to collect unemployment compensation and an additional $600 weekly in federal supplemental funds authorized as a temporary emergency stipend for people laid off or furloughed because of the covid-19 pandemic. He said the option gained rapid acceptance among his employees.
"I've had employees call asking to be furloughed," he said. "I've had some get mad because they didn't get furloughed, and I've had others threaten to file a complaint because they want to be furloughed."
He said if the county fails to act quickly, it could be forced to make permanent cuts later.
Woods and Washington were the most vocal opponents of the ordinance, both saying the cuts would make it impossible for their offices to function properly. Washington, with seven employees, would have had to furlough two.
"I can't operate if I have to furlough employees," Washington said. "We've got a job to do, and I won't be able to deal with the line there'll be when those doors open."
Washington offered an alternative of paying two employees out of a separate fund, his office automation fund, which he said has sufficient money to pay the two employees for at least a year.
Woods oversees 144 employees in the sheriff's office, the Jefferson County jail, and the juvenile justice complex. He argued that to meet the requirements of the ordinance would force him to furlough at least 47 employees, which would leave him unable to fulfill the functions of the office at the current levels of service.
Woods argued that the sheriff's office should be exempt from such cuts.
"In our state constitution, our forefathers took pains to carve out the funding priorities," Woods said, adding that public safety was the top funding priority. He said the state constitution requires that his office provide security for the courts, maintain the peace, and provide and maintain a jail.
Woods said if he is forced to make cuts, he'll have to slash patrols and other services, and might have to drastically lower the jail population.
"If you do not make an exemption for public safety, if I have to cut the jail population to 50 because that's all I can maintain, that's what I'll do," he said. The jail has beds for 315 prisoners, but Woods has kept the population down to around 210 to maintain isolation space in case inmates become infected with covid-19.
Circuit Judge Earnest Brown asked that his court be exempted because he had applied to the state and was approved to participate in the Shared Work Unemployment Compensation Program to compensate his employees for a 25% cut in their work hours.
He said doing so would cut $170,000 from his $700,000 budget, and because he has 13 juvenile justice officers whose salaries are reimbursed up to $15,000 a year by the state, that would save $60,000 over what he would save by furloughing four employees.
"I'm not saying we don't need to cut," Brown said. "I'm just saying there's another way to do it."
After another half-hour of debate, the Quorum Court approved the ordinance after amending it to give elected officials until Monday to submit alternative plans to the county judge's office for approval.
The previous day, the Pine Bluff City Council, also facing budget shortfalls, unanimously passed a resolution authorizing city employees to participate in the Shared Work Unemployment Compensation Program, which allows the city to divvy up available work, or hours of work, among specific groups of employees. Under the program, the work hours for eligible employees will be reduced by 20%, while those employees will be allowed to receive unemployment compensation for the hours lost.
Employees will also be eligible for the weekly $600 subsidy from federal funds authorized under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act that was passed recently by Congress. It was estimated that the city could save $750,000 over the next year while maintaining its workforce.
State Desk on 05/10/2020