Around 40 city of Hartford employees are getting layoff notices today, according to Mayor Luke Bronin, and he said they will be in almost every department in the city.
The budget proposal Bronin submitted to the town clerk last month includes 42 layoffs, the elimination of 95 positions and $15.5 million in cuts.
"It's almost every department in the city," Bronin said. "There will be layoffs in almost every department."
Bronin, who is serving his first term as mayor, warned during his State of the City Address that budget cuts would hurt and could eliminate some city services.
"The hardest part of this process is telling somebody that they no longer have a job," Bronin said today. "That weighs on me every day, but we have to get this city on track and we have no choice but to make the kind of cuts that are in the budget that I've recommended."
The employees who are being laid off are not getting severance packages, but will have health care through the end of June and will remain on the payroll for a few weeks, Bronin said.
"We will be doing our best to provide employee assistance, make some resources available to help employees prepare for the job application process and manage that transition, deal with COBRA benefits -- all of those things that can be helpful in a very tough time like this -- but there is no getting around that it's a very difficult, challenging thing for anyone who's affected," Bronin said.
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When asked if this is the end of the layoffs or if more are coming, Bronin said his budget includes a large amount of hoped for and anticipated "labor savings" and his office is in negotiations.
"But if we don't get those savings, there will have to be other cuts and there will have to be deep cuts and I think there is no way to make those without even more layoffs," Bronin said.
The latest announcement comes the day after Hartford parents packed a meeting to discuss a $30 million budget gap and learned that layoffs are inevitable.
