Nearly 30 Snohomish County planning department employees were saved from layoffs Friday after department heads compared notes and discovered that they were needed elsewhere in the county office building.
Biologists, engineers and inspectors who might have left their offices in the planning department clutching pink slips will instead spend the remainder of the year on loan to the county’s public works department.
Beginning May 16, 27 planning department employees who were at risk for layoffs will assess bridges instead of streets or tackle rural pollution instead of beach erosion. Their salaries and planning department job titles will not change while they are on loan to the public works department.
Three planning department employees have until June 30 to find work in other county departments or new jobs entirely.
“This is a win-win situation,” said James Trefry of Washington State Council of County and City Employees, the union that represents planning department employees. “The employers won, the employees won and the union won. You couldn’t ask for a better outcome.”
When county officials realized the planning department was poised to lose $4.4 million this year because of the slowing building activity, Director of Planning and Development Services Craig Ladiser was forced to make cuts.
Ladiser said he shaved $1.6 million by cutting back on staff training and deleting contracts that weren’t crucial to the department’s survival. That left $2.8 million to cut: the equivalent of six months of salary for 50 employees.
Twenty of those positions were already vacant and will remain unfilled.
The county’s planning department is funded in part through building permits. County officials expected a drop of 11 percent — about $3 million — compared with 2007 because of the slowdown in the housing and building market. Now, the county expects to process about half the number of housing permits as it did during its peak in 2005.
The biologists, engineers and other workers in the planning department and the public works department, headed by Steve Thomsen, are highly skilled and often difficult to find, Ladiser said.
Ladiser’s budget problem meant an immediate pool of highly skilled professionals became available — perfect for jobs for which Thomsen usually hires consultants.
“I’m solving my budget deficit, and Steve’s got more capacity to do more work,” Ladiser said.
Thomsen said he relies on contractors because his department’s workload ebbs and flows. In this case, it’s cheaper to use Ladiser’s employees than to hire consultants.
The planning department employees are on loan to the public works department until the end of the year. That loan could be extended through 2009, Ladiser said.
“This might be a solution for longer term,” Ladiser said. “We have some very highly sought skill sets in both of our departments that can be shared for the cyclical challenges we face.”
The three remaining employees who will not be reassigned to the public works department will look for work elsewhere in the county government, Snohomish County spokesman Christopher Schwarzen said. City governments and other local agencies have contacted the county with offers of work for the employees.
Trefry cautioned that the economic downturn might continue beyond the county’s current budget cycle.
“We’ll have to review the status of things and see if there will be any more potential for layoffs,” he said. “We’re just trying to be responsive and prepared to protect people’s jobs.”
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
