Markeshia Ricks Photo
Mayor Harp.
The mayor has informed three dozen government managers that they must each take three unpaid days off over the next eight months to help alleviate the city’s fiscal stress.
On Oct. 30, Mayor Toni Harp sent a letter to the city’s 36 non-unionized executive management and “confidential employees,” requiring them to each take a three-day unpaid furlough leave between now and the end of the 2018 – 2019 fiscal year at the end of June 2019.
That unpaid-time-off requirement will also apply to the mayor herself, Harp wrote.
“As leaders in our various departments and our City,” she wrote, “we need to be role models in demonstrating our support of sound fiscal responsibility.”
Click here to read the full letter.
The final budget that the alders passed for the fiscal year that started July 1 included $1.9 million in the “Employee Concessions Vacancy & Non-Personnel Savings” line item.
Harp’s letter says that the employees may take the furlough time in increments as small as one hour, and that the time must be approved by each employee’s department head and/or coordinator. All 21 hours of unpaid furlough time, she wrote, must be used by June 30, 2019.
“Implementing this Furlough Time in this manner permits the continued operations of your department with a lessened impact to services,” Harp continued, “while creating a savings for the City.”
City spokesperson Laurence Grotheer confirmed that the mayor will hold herself to the same three-day furlough requirement that she has issued to the three dozen executive management and “confidential employees.”
“The city’s current-year budget includes employee concessions,” he told the Independent. “These unpaid furlough days are part of that initiative.”