BRICK TOWNSHIP — The state Department of Personnel has approved the township’s restructuring plan that calls for layoffs of 53 township employees.
But just who will actually go depends on who has “bumping” privileges and who retires before the Dec. 31 layoff date, Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis said Monday.
“Everything is predicated on if people retire or if they don’t retire,” the mayor said. “That number could go down. The next step is for the DOP to give us the list of all the bumping privileges that people have. Once we get that, that will dictate what is going on.”
Civil Service mandates that anyone with ten years or more employment who stands to lose his or her job has the right to “bump” another worker to a lesser position they may have previously held, Acropolis said.
And that sometimes results in the wrong people staying, he said.
“The DOP will give us a list that will dictate who goes where and who bumps who,” Acropolis said. “Some employees who are the best employees are not going to be here.”
Civil Service bumping rights are not based on job performance, but on how long a person has been employed, the mayor said.
“And that’s unfair to the people who work here,” he said. “It’s based on seniority, not job performance.”
Most of the cuts in the restructuring plan will come from public works, the largest department in the township. The plan also calls for the elimination of eight building inspector positions.
Transport Workers Union Local 225 officials have opposed the plan and any layoffs, which they say unfairly target the public works department.
The state DOP approved the restructuring plan earlier this month, the mayor said.
The plan was put together by Business Administrator Scott M. Pezarras, Assistant Business Administrator Juan Bellu, who was hired earlier this year, Purchasing Agent Richard MacDonald, Public Works Director Glen Campbell and the township’s human resources department, the mayor said.
“They came up with the restructuring plan and they presented it to me,” Acropolis said. “Who am I to say this[the plan] isn’t right?”
Township officials are facing a nearly $4 million shortfall in the 2009 municipal budget. Acropolis and Pezarras have blamed much of the problem on the state-mandated cap on the amount that can be raised by taxation each year in a municipal budget.
“If somebody wants to yell, we should be yelling about Civil Service and the archaic organization,” Acropolis said. “It rewards people that are not necessarily doing their jobs.”