Another OCA Screw-Up: Wrong Court Employees Fired

Budget Cuts Buffet State Court System
The New York Law Journal by Joel Stashenko  -  April 21, 2011

New York's court system laid off employees yesterday for the first time in 20 years.

Pink slips were given to 58 full-time and 16 temporary employees, most in the Office of Court Administration headquarters in Manhattan, according to the court's administrative director, Lawrence H. Marks. The dismissals were a precursor to a more drastic round of hundreds of job cuts to come as the Judiciary complies to a directive from Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the Legislature to slash $170 million from the courts' budget for the fiscal year that began April 1. Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman had offered to cut $100 million, but another $70 million was imposed on top of his suggested reductions. Job cuts announced yesterday included computer programmers, secretarial staff, auditors and two attorneys, Judge Marks said. The temporary employees, who do not receive insurance coverage or other benefits, were chiefly in data-processing positions, he said. "These layoffs, and the additional layoffs to come in the courts, are the most difficult things we have ever had to do here," Judge Marks said yesterday in an interview. All employees losing their jobs were given two-weeks' notice yesterday and will leave by May 4. At the agency's headquarters in Manhattan yesterday, OCA employees who declined to give their names described the office's mood as "somber," "very quiet," "worried" and "really tense."  "It's like the walking dead up there," said one administrative staffer on his lunch break. "We're kind of like walking on egg shells." Though the OCA made no official announcements yesterday, news trickled in as the layoffs began in the morning. Asked about the cuts' impacts, the worker said they would "demoralize" everyone. Another OCA employee, who worked in the technology field, noted that people take pay cuts to work in government jobs, which are thought to offer stability. "How would you feel if you were let go?" he asked. Another OCA employee, who works in the accounts unit, said she packed up her things on Friday, suspecting she would be let go. Instead, it was a co-worker who got laid off. But one dismissed employee said she was "elated" to be let go "because I'm free." The employee, a court analyst processing the health insurance information for court officers, found out she was being cut around 11 a.m. She was a temporary worker for five years and a permanent staffer for almost 10 more years. She said she planned to work until May 4. The analyst said her supervisor explained the layoff was due to budget cuts. "She was more upset than I was," the analyst said, adding that three or four people who were not let go left work early because they were so upset by the cuts. Asked how the layoffs would affect OCA's operations, the analyst said, "I don't know, and, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Judge Lippman has said that up to 500 court system employees will lose their jobs (NYLJ, March 29).  Judge Marks said the bulk of the layoffs will be imposed by mid-May. The court system has about 15,200 non-judicial employees. The ranks of employees had already thinned out by an early retirement program offered last year (NYLJ, Nov. 23, 2010). Yesterday's round of cuts were largely in New York City and included both union and non-union workers. While a union member can generally exercise his or her "bumping" rights to claim the job of a less-senior worker, Judge Marks said no employees laid off yesterday were in unique job titles where the right was available. Of the 74 workers terminated yesterday, 50 worked downstate and 24 upstate, said the courts' chief of operations, Ronald Younkins. The last round of layoffs in the state courts took place in 1991, due to another fiscal crisis. Within about a year, most of those workers were hired back. |Joel Stashenko can be contacted at jstashenko@alm.com. Andrew Keshner contributed to this report.