Prison layoffs delayed by mailing error

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State prison employees facing the loss of their jobs won a reprieve this week when they discovered that the state corrections agency had violated their right to a 30-day layoff notice. The state will lose up to $7 million in personnel costs that it otherwise would have saved, officials said. Some of the workers, who belong to Service Employees International Union Local 1000, received notices well into January, even though the postage meter stamp from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Dec. 31. One employee contacted the post office and learned that his notice had been mailed Jan. 6, six days after it was metered, which is not permitted by federal regulations and also did not give him an adequate warning of their layoff under state regulations. Mary Fernandez, the undersecretary for administration at the prison agency, said that of 1,015 letters that were sent for a Jan. 31 layoff date, about half went out too late because of mistakes in the letters, among other issues. “It was not intentional at all,” Fernandez said. Some workers have since been placed in other jobs; 850 letters are being sent out for the new March 1 layoff date. Cindie Fonseca, one of the laid-off workers, a vocational instructor who is currently on leave from that post to help the union, said the state hasn’t listened to alternative budget cuts the union has presented. “They would rather lie to us and break a federal law,” Fonseca said. “In my mind, it’s disgusting.” Fernandez said the state is trying to avoid as many layoffs as possible.

[Updated at 4 p.m.: A spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says the agency will recover the $7 million lost by delaying the layoffs through other cuts.]

-- Michael Rothfeld in Sacramento