IRVINE : City to Lay Off 9 More Employees

The City Council this week approved laying off nine more city employees as a result of a construction slowdown and recommendations from a committee to cut three managers from the payroll.

Seven of the nine employees will come from the Community Development Department because developers have slowed their pace of building due to the recession, City Manager Paul O. Brady Jr. said. Five are full-time employees and two are part-time. That will save about $225,000 between January and June.

The other two employees to be laid off are one of Brady’s assistant city managers and a planner-supervisor in community development. The savings have not been calculated.

The nine layoffs follow two others the council approved in June because of a development slowdown. The June layoffs were the first ever in the city’s 20-year history.

A committee of city officials and a business personnel manager, after a four-month study, recommended that the two managers be laid off as part of a plan to restructure city government.

The council approved all of the committee’s recommendations, which are scheduled to take effect over the next 2 1/2 years.

Brady said the city will try to help all of the laid-off employees find jobs. The employees will not lose their jobs until Jan. 2, he said.

Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan said that the city “never had to tighten (its) belt to this extent,” but that Irvine is in good financial shape because of the hiring freezes and cutbacks that have been instituted over the past two years.