Coronavirus Update: San Jose Furloughing Part-Time Employees To Make Up For Revenue Shortfalls
SAN JOSE (CBS SF) -- City officials have announced work furloughs for hundreds of part-time employees in non-essential jobs, citing at least $45 million in general fund "revenue shortfalls" by the end of the year.
Dave Sykes, the city manager, delivered the news to the San Jose City Council via teleconference Tuesday evening.
"After a lot of thought and careful consideration, we've come to the decision that we're going to end administrative leave for part-time, unbenefited and temporary employees," Sykes said. "This is, in essence, a furlough for the unbenefited and temporary employees, and that furlough will begin on May 4th."
Sykes added that some workers might be rehired in the near future.
"And certainly there's always the opportunity to assign those, or reassign those employees, should we need their support in terms of how our response continues," he said.
The employees were planned to have paid administrative leave until the May 3rd expiration of Santa Clara County's current shelter-in-place order.
The furloughs will be of workers in departments such as Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services, the San Jose Public Library and the San Jose Police Department.
The furlough affects nearly 1,200 employees including lifeguards, crossing guards, recreation leaders, library pages, interns and some positions within the San Jose Police Department.
Tavyn Lovitt was a new hire with San Jose's Parks and Rec Department, but was laid off a week into the lockdown.
Right now I'm waiting for my unemployment claim to be approved. It's been about three weeks, said Lovitt.
She's trying to keep a positive outlook.
"At least it's beautiful outside and we have a little more time to appreciate it, if anything," said Lovitt. "If there's a bright side to all this, just know that there is an end to it and you can get back into what you were doing. You just have to be very frugal right now and try to be patient and see the bright side."
This will not be the only thing the city does as it tries to recover from the coronavirus outbreak.
"This is really step one, if you will, to address significant revenue loss in the current year," Sykes added. "There will be future steps that we will need to take in the proposed budget for next year, and that will be coming very soon. I think the approach that we're taking is not an overreaction. We need to take these revenue shortfalls seriously. They are real and we certainly can not assume that we will be reimbursed for lost revenue, as we discussed earlier in the day."
Jim Shannon, the city's budget director, also briefed the council Tuesday to detail additional steps forward through what will be the next recession.
Shannon detailed additional cuts to the city's and city employee's expenditures not directly related to COVID-19, including the suspension of capital projects that have not started.
The budget director also said the city's greatest estimated revenue loss will be about $27 million from sales tax - or about 20-percent of the city's budget, Shannon said.
"I just know that this is not a problem we're going to be able to deal with in a year," Mayor Sam Liccardo said, adding that he believes the next year's projections "are going to get a whole lot worse."
Kiet Do contributed to this report.
