Sacramento Kings Furlough One-Third Of Full-Time Workers For 4 Months

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — The Sacramento Kings are furloughing approximately 100 full-time employees for four months beginning June 1.

John Rinehart, the president of business operations for the Kings, announced the furloughs in a letter to employees that was obtained by CBS13 on Monday.

In addition to the furloughs, Rinehart announced executives will be taking "substantial salary reductions and forgoing annual bonuses." The organization has also frozen non-essential spending and hiring and eliminated company-match for the 401(k).

Rinehart wrote, "We are facing an extraordinarily difficult moment for our organization and over the past several weeks we have taken steps to implement cost reductions.

A spokesperson for the Kings told CBS13 essential basketball operations functions, including the front office, health and performance team, scouting, and analytics are not impacted by the furloughs.

In the letter, Rinehart did pledget to support furloughed employees and said they will still receive full medical benefits.

"You are the lifeblood of our organization – your hard work brings the joy of sports and entertainment to life for our fans and our community, and you have each helped us to achieve incredible results together. As soon as our business stabilizes, our goal is to look for swift ways to bring back impacted team members once we resume normal operations," Rinehart wrote to his employees. 

The Kings' season has been suspended due to the coronavirus crisis since March 11, when they were supposed to play the New Orleans Pelicans.

On Monday officials also announced the Governor's Office of Emergency Services will no longer have to pay to use the Kings former arena as a surge hospital for coronavirus patients.

READ MORE: California Not Longer Being Charged To Use Former Kings Arena As Coronavirus Surge Hospital

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