BATON ROUGE, La. - Some 250 employees of a local state agency that treats mental health and addictive disorders will be furloughed for seven days without pay to avoid a $518,000 deficit, the agency's executive director said. The move is being taken to avoid state employee layoffs, Capital Area Human Service District Executive Director Jan Kasofsky said Thursday. "If we did a layoff, it would really hurt our ability to deliver services," Kasofsky said. She said the furlough will affect services some, "but when we are up and running we will be able to run a better ship."
"It was the least disruptive of the options," Kasofsky said. Most of the affected employees are in direct service positions, including doctors, nurses, social workers, counselors, therapeutic guards and medical records personnel, Kasofsky said. The Capital Area serves some 10,000 people in its mental health and addictive disorders clinics annually.The district serves those in need of mental health and addictive disorder treatment in the parishes of East Baton Rouge, Ascension, East Feliciana, Iberville, Pointe Coupee, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana. Layoffs would have more severely affected the agency's ability to deliver services because ten or more employees would have lost their jobs, Kasofsky said. Under the plan, approved by Civil Service, affected employees will be furloughed at various designated times between now and the end of the year. The furlough days will be before or after state holidays
No comments:
Post a Comment