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| FIRST ON WGIL: State Budget Fiasco Resulting in Layoffs at Knox County Health Department |
POSTED 7/09/09 10:16p.m. Several Knox County Health Department employees will be finding out Friday morning, thanks to the state budget crisis and the health department not receiving adequate funding, that they will be laid off from their positions at the health department.
The Knox County Board of Health Thursday night, after much discussion, voted to layoff seven employees of the health department, in essence saving the department over $140,000 over a year's time. Knox County Board of Health President Jeanne Harland said the decision was made as their hearts were breaking for the employees.
Director of Community Health Improvement for the Knox County Health Department Michele Fishburn, who will have to layoff two employees in her department, tells WGIL it's not something that was just brought up and employees have been kept in the loop of possible layoffs.
"We've been looking at this for some time and we've been honest and open with our staff that we were experiencing funding reductions because the state is not in a place where it has adopted a budget so a lot of our grant funding is not coming in and we have not received contracts for grants that are coming that were supposed to be effective July 1."
Fishburn says two positions each from the Health Protection Services Department, the Community Health Clinic, and the Community Health Improvement Services will be let go as well a single cut to the administrative services department will be affected.
The people who are laid off may be called back in the next few months, according to the board, but that's dependent on how state funding for health services plays out.
The layoffs will take affect in two weeks. |
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| 07 09 09 by Newsroom |
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