PROVO — Six Provo city employees lost their jobs Friday, and another 20 have been offered voluntary severance packages.
The layoffs, voluntary or otherwise, are part of an effort by Mayor John Curtis to trim $4 million from Provo's $40 million-plus budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year.
That's how much revenue a precipitous decline in sales tax will cost the city next year. Curtis said the cuts are necessary to avoid a tax increase.
Combined with about 20 jobs that have been eliminated through attrition over the past year, the layoffs will trim the city staff by 7 percent and resolve about half of the city's budget shortfall for the coming year. The remainder will come from budget cuts in virtually every department in city government.
Curtis said the cuts were no surprise to city workers.
"Our employees have known from the first of the year that if you are going to reduce the budget by $4 million and 70 (percent) to 80 percent of the budget is personnel, you can't get from A to B without personnel cuts," the first-year mayor said. "It's been a cloud over the city, quite frankly, since you didn't know how bad it was going to be."
After meeting Thursday with the six employees whose positions were being eliminated and meeting with larger groups to offer voluntary severance packages, Curtis was visibly relieved.
"The hard part is over," he said. "It becomes very personal."
All told, the severance packages will cost the city $524,000 and generate an annual savings of $2.52 million, Curtis said. The City Council will still have to appropriate funds for the severance, basically approving the mayor's actions, but Vice Chairman Rick Healey said council members have been involved in the process, and he's confident the council will support the mayor.
"The very fact that we've been in the mix has taught those of us on the council a lot of lessons, things we need to know about the inner workings of the budget," Healey said.
Last year, then-Mayor Lewis Billings vowed to balance the city's budget without layoffs, a move supported by an intent statement passed by the existing council.
But Curtis said the city's shrinking budget demanded a rethinking of how Provo spends its money, and he's spent the past three months working with public committees and city departments to find out how to make permanent budget cuts for a leaner city operation. Many of the suggestions for which positions should be eliminated came from within the departments, he said.
"City employees have been involved in the process from the beginning," Curtis said. "We didn't want to make a one-time cut, but we wanted strong ideas that were surgical and which fixed the problem, and we got them."
No department managers were let go Thursday, but some middle-management positions were eliminated. The mayor's office is taking the biggest hit with a 17 percent reduction in personnel.
In departments where voluntary severance packages have been offered, employees have 45 days to decide if they want to take the offer before the city makes a decision for them.
"We believe that there will be a number of people who will look at that and see a good opportunity," Curtis said.
e-mail: mhaddock@desnews.com