WAOW - Newsline 9, Wausau News, Weather, SportsCounty workers required to take 5 furlough days
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WAUPACA COUNTY (WBAY) -- With a little more than three months left in 2009, one Northeast Wisconsin county is forcing its employees to stay home to make up for a budget deficit.
Waupaca County was facing a budget shortfall of nearly one-million dollars this year. To make ends meet, by the end of the year county workers will be required to take a five-day furlough.
Waupaca County Board Chair Dick Koeppen says it wasn't an easy choice to make, but it was the right one.
By requiring all 480 county workers to take five unpaid days off by the end of the year, the county will save about $400,000.
"There will be no layoffs. Layoffs aren't nice," Koeppen said. "Furloughs, you can take it when you see a day here or there. You get the OK from your department head and you take that day off."
Koeppen explained the need for the furloughs, "It happens because revenues have declined so drastically this year due to the global economy. It's happening all over."
The decrease is because of a number of issues. Sales tax revenue was down a quarter of a million dollars, while revenue from the county-run nursing home along with interest from county investments each took a $300,000 hit.
Even though each department made cuts where it could, and the county saw an increase in the amount of money it made by housing inmates from other counties, the furloughs seemed like a logical step.
"It's a challenge that we face just like a lot of private businesses face, and this is our approach. We feel it's the best approach, and we're optimistic that our employees and unions will work with us to achieve that," Waupaca County personnel director Amanda Welch said.
In addition to the furloughs, the county chair told us he's not accepting his salary in December and the county board, which reimburses its members for travel, won't hold a meeting in December in an effort to cut costs.
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