Local governments, school districts slashing jobs

Municipal governments and school districts across Long Island are contracting their workforces, and local leaders say they don't expect things to improve anytime soon.

The reductions, which officials say are in response to plunges in market-driven revenues and state aid, reflect the national picture - where the biggest share of job losses last month, excluding temporary census workers, were in local governments and schools.

The William Floyd school district eliminated 113.5 full and part-time teachers and staff for this school year. That's just part of more than 1,400 planned job cuts, including more than 900 teachers, in the 124 Long Island school district budgets passed this year. Riverhead Town just cut 13 full- and part-time staffers.

Officials say the news will get worse.

Town layoffs

Brookhaven plans to lay off 68 workers. And some 750 county employees - many spurred by generous incentives - have opted for early retirement in Nassau and Suffolk.

"It's bleak," said Joe Hogan, president of the teachers union in the Brentwood school district, which shed 60 jobs. "The state has said they're going to cut back more, so I don't know what we're going to do."

A state-sponsored early retirement incentive is helping several towns avoid layoffs as they shed workers: 92 in Oyster Bay, 60 in Brookhaven and an about 40 in Islip, reducing its workforce to about 740 by year's end, three-quarters of what it was four years ago.

"We've looked at all of our operations with an eye toward pruning them back to our core mission," said Islip Supervisor Phil Nolan, who laid off 37 employees last year. "You have to live within your means."

State hiring freeze

At the state level, where a hiring freeze has helped reduce the workforce by about 6,000 from March 2009 to early last month, Gov. David A. Paterson is moving forward with plans to cut 2,000 jobs by year's end, some through layoffs, though he faces a likely legal challenge from employee unions. Another 6,000 people have taken the latest early retirement incentive.

With more state aid cuts for school districts likely and little prospect of a great rebound in town mortgage-tax revenues, officials say they are grappling with the consequences of a bare-bones workforce.

"We're going to have a healthy debate about service reductions, about privatization, about what type of business should townships be in," said Brookhaven Supervisor Mark Lesko, whose proposed 2011 budget includes the closure of two outdoor pools, a greenhouse in Holtsville and a composting facility in Manorville.

School officials in the Lindenhurst and Central Islip districts, which this year laid off 37 and 70 teachers, respectively, say worry about next year. And William Floyd Superintendent Paul Casciano expects more pain.

No relief soon

"I think the private sector was feeling the effects of recession before us, and then it hit us like a ton of bricks," Casciano said. "We're not anticipating the picture is going to be much brighter next year."

And that's even if the economy improves, said Southold Town Supervisor Scott A. Russell, who offered a retirement incentive last year: "We can't start hiring back new employees. . . . Economies come and go, but positions stay forever."

Still, some municipal leaders noted that staff reductions only go so far.

"Government has to always be looking for ways to govern wiser," said North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman, who expects about 35 town employees to take the retirement incentive. "That being said, government must be funded.

"There's only so much you can cut."