ACS Managers Budget Casualties: 36 Are Laid-Off or Demoted

STEPHEN M. FERRER: Laments pay disparities.

Managers at the Administration for Children's Services are being laid off and demoted, with other agencies compiling at-risk lists, as city agencies deal with cuts for the coming fiscal year's budget.

Paid Less Than Union Staff

Managerial Employees Association President Stephen M. Ferrer said that some of his demoted members were being paid less than unionized workers in their offices. The MEA advocates for city managers but does not have collective-bargaining rights.

"ACS is cutting managers, about 36 people, either laying them off or demoting to their previous civil service title," Mr. Ferrer said in a phone interview. "They have been receiving letters saying that they will be laid off if they are pure provisionals, and if they are provisional managers, they will be returned to their previous civil service title."

'Losing Jobs, Losing Pay'

Mr. Ferrer said that the MEA had heard that "other agencies have been asked to produce an at-risk list, but haven't really gone ahead as far as ACS did." He said his attempts to contact ACS had been mostly fruitless, but that officials had sent him their criteria for whom they were laying off, which looked at performance evaluations and seniority.

"These are people actually losing jobs, and losing their salaries," Mr. Ferrer said. One manager, MEA Executive Vice President Willie Maye Jr., was demoted from a Level II to a Level I manager, and suffered a 20-percent pay decrease.

"There's no real systematic way for how the people who have been affected have been selected," Mr. Maye said in a phone interview. "The most junior are the ones who are selected first, but there are others who came in at the Manager II level long after I did and have not been affected. Those kinds of things are affecting morale."

The cuts to managers come as the civil servants in the office, represented by District Council 37 Local 371, receive their first four-percent pay increase, Mr. Maye said. "It's a real kick in the teeth…we've been asked to take a reduction in pay, we're not union," he said. "We don't have the negotiating leverage that the unions have. It's like, take it in stride, and keep moving."

Don't Get Overtime Pay

Unionized workers are also eligible for overtime pay, unlike managers. "We hope when the raises come around, if they come around, that we would be remembered for what we're being asked to do," Mr. Maye said.

ACS, which faces a $62-million budget gap, has been cut more heavily than some agencies in the 2010 budget, which takes effect July 1. Mr. Maye said that ACS was "one agency that's been asked to take the most cuts, to bear the brunt of this. Considering we're the agency that's really trying to prevent abuse and neglect, take care of children, it's really unfortunate, to put it mildly."

He added that Commissioner John R. Mattingly had told managers that "he's really gone to bat for the agency and he hasn't gotten the response he hoped to get. There's no rhyme or reason to it."

An ACS spokeswoman declined to comment.