All three of the City of Altus budget options put forth included a ten percent reduction in personnel services. That number has real people behind it. New City Financial Director James Wilson knows that would mean a decrease in services to the community too, so he didn’t suggest the measure lightly. Wilson said at the Tuesday, June 5 meeting, “We’ve got to decrease spending. We’re going broke.” To which City Council member Rick Henry replied, “I take offense at that. We’ve been broke. We’re coming back from it.” Hearing the truth is hard.

After last year’s lay-offs at the City, people may be multiplying these additional reductions in their heads. Various numbers of the City jobs being lost are flying around town. In an attempt to supply real numbers, here’s a brief count down so far.

At the May 29 City Council’s Special Meeting / Public Hearing on the budget, City Human Resource Director, Matt Coppock said that an average of 27 positions eliminated may save the City the targeted goal of $1.6 million. It depended on the salary of those eligible employees willing to accept the severance packages ranging from $3,000 to $9,000. If the 27 positions saved $1.6 million over a year’s budget, the lay-offs would stop there. If not, they could continue. At that point, there were ten positions held vacant and “three or four who applied for severance that day,” Coppock said.

By Tuesday, June 5, Coppock said that there were ten positions held vacant, and there had been 14 employees who had applied for a severance package. That’s 24 so far, not 37 or more.

The clock is ticking. Council approved the severance packages payble in July, at the May 29 City Council Public Hearing. At the June 5 meeting, the council approved an “open window of early retirement using the rule of 80, based on the age of 55 or older and number of years of credited service with the employee’s election date not later than Aug. 1, 2012 and the employee’s retirement date not later than Sept. 1”.