City calculates scores for potential layoffs
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
By: Elizabeth Fiedler
efiedler@whyy.org
Mayor Michael Nutter says he will wait an extra week to see if Pennsylvania lawmakers approve a city sales tax hike and pension changes for Philadelphia by September 10th. If not – the city will start to put into effect the Doomsday budget scenario called Plan C. Under that plan, the city would close recreation centers and libraries, and slash 3,000 jobs.
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It's not certain whether the job cuts will actually happen, but the city's still preparing. Albert D'Attilio is the city's Director of Human Resources.
He says since mid-August twenty five HR Department employees who would usually be working on recruiting and testing civil servants, have been busy triple-checking lay-off scores they're received from departments heads.
The numeric assessment of each employee considers seniority, performance and a handful of other factors to determine under civil service rules who would be laid off first.
D'Attilio: We don't mind doing this work, it's part of our job. We hope that we don't actually have to do those notices but we will prepared to notify employees if we have to on September 18th.
D'Attilio says workers will continue cataloging lay-off scores through September 11th.
The layoffs would be effective October 2nd.