ACS Layoff Controversy

The layoff of 329 tenured civil servants last week by the Administration for Children’s Services is more controversial than usual because of the charge by the union representing most of those employees that it was dictated by a policy decision rather than budgetary problems.

Faye Moore, the president of Social Service Employees Union Local 371 of District Council 37, asserted that ACS decided the jobs were expendable as part of a reorganization of its foster-care operation. She said alternatives presented by the union that would have saved the jobs were rejected, and accused ACS Commissioner John Mattingly of ducking meetings connected to the layoffs because he “holds the public-sector workforce in such contempt.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Mattingly insisted that the agency took all possible steps to keep core services intact, saying that the employees who lost their jobs occupied “mostly administrative, support, and record-keeping positions” or worked in programs that were scaled down or eliminated.

Ms. Moore countered that ACS at the same time was hiring additional personnel as part of the foster care operation, although they would be lowersalaried and have no civil service protection. She predicted that the net effect of replacing experienced workers with less-senior personnel would be that foster-care services would suffer.

If she’s right, then ACS’s decision to get rid of hundreds of veteran staffers, casting them into a particularly tough job market, becomes something far worse than regrettable. Layoffs should never be made lightly; in cases where reorganization is the driving force, other positions should be found for the affected workers.