Government Jobs In Hartford Cut

The number of local government jobs in Hartford, Connecticut will soon drop. The city's mayor, Eddie A. Perez, recently announced that Hartford will be reducing its workforce by 132 jobs.

The decision to do away with these jobs was reached as a way to fix some of the city's budgeting problems. According to the mayor's office, cutting these Hartford jobs will save the city more than $6 million a year. Hartford won't begin to experience most of these savings until the next fiscal year.

Thirty of the Connecticut jobs to receive the ax will come from already vacant positions that will not be refilled. These jobs were already budgeted for.

Another 46 of these jobs will come from not filling in staff vacancies from employees that announced their desire to retire soon. After these positions are taken into account, Hartford will only have to layoff 56 workers.

The Mayor has made it a point to reassure residents that none of these layoffs will take place at the city's police headquarters or fire stations. According to him, none of the positions will affect the well being or safety of the city's residents.

"With the financial crisis impacting cities across the nation and with the announcement by the Governor of deep cuts to the state budget, we had to move decisively to maintain a balanced budget and keep our fiscal house in order," said Perez in a recent statement. "These layoffs will not impact public safety and have been formulated in a way to maintain the quality of core city services."

Aside from this, there has been no word as to which of the offices will lose employees.

"The City's request for concession by impacted unions was not successful," said the mayor. "All impacted employees will be provided with transitional assistance to help them find positions outside city government."