Suffolk health dept. hardest hit by layoffs

A layoff list approved Tuesday by the Suffolk Legislature cut 149 fewer jobs than initially proposed, but the county health department wasn't celebrating.

The department will lose 123 jobs, compared with the 98 layoffs proposed last year by former County Executive Steve Levy. Countywide, 315 jobs will be cut as of July 1, compared with the 464 Levy had sought.

Grace Kelly-McGovern, a health department spokeswoman, said her department will be hit hard.

"It's painful. We've lost a lot," she said Wednesday. "We're already doing more with less -- and that's been for a while now."

Bellone spokeswoman Vanessa Baird-Streeter said that "in these pressing economic times, we had to make the tough choices to ensure that we met the budgeted savings necessary to prevent Suffolk County's $530 million deficit from growing even larger."

Though the health department will have the most layoffs of any county agency, administration officials would not detail their thinking in parceling out the job cuts. But they noted that they consulted the department before making the final layoff list, and restored 19 grant-funded health positions.

Bellone is axing public health nurses and drug counselors, as well as clerical and environmental service staff.

Health Commissioner James Tomarken, who was unavailable for comment Wednesday, told county lawmakers last fall that Levy's cuts to nursing and environmental inspection services would "compromise" public health.

Health care advocates said after Tuesday's vote that they were particularly concerned about losses of public health nurses. Eight of the bureau's 13 specialized field nurses, who provide care in low-income communities, will be cut. Departmentwide, 14 of 32 public health nurses will lose jobs.

Baird-Streeter said officials tried to identify services duplicated by insurance carriers. But Anne Kellett, a member of the bureau's professional advisory committee, said, "private agencies are not going to pick these people up. These are essential services."

Before the vote, Kellett had pleaded with lawmakers to save jobs. "How and why did such a small service unit within the county, which provides essential services to a good portion of the poor, be assigned responsibility for the budget deficit?" she asked.

A public health educator who helps run anti-smoking groups also is on the layoff list.

"We are taxpayers too," health education director Lori Benincasa told lawmakers Tuesday, referring to her staff. "Putting hardworking taxpayers out of work does not help the economy."