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28 JFS employees get layoff notices
TweetStaff will be reorganized to better serve clients, the acting director says.
YOUNGSTOWN — Twenty-eight employees of the Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Services have received layoff notices as the agency cuts staff due to losses in state funding.
The agency is abolishing 25 positions in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2001 bargaining unit, 24 of them occupied and one vacant.
Those 24 people, all nonsupervisory income-maintenance workers, received layoff notices Monday with an Oct. 13 effective date, said Judee Genetin, acting JFS director.
Five of the job abolitions were related to changes in state child-care programs, including abolition in August of the Early Learning Initiative preschool program, which was a casualty of state budget cuts.
However, the agency plans to post and fill 10 vacant lower-paid, direct-service income-maintenance positions to improve service to a growing number of clients in tough economic times, Genetin said. Those who got layoff notices may apply for those positions, she said. JFS has about 300 workers.
“We’re going to concentrate on serving clients and making sure that people get food, medical care and shelter,” Genetin said of a departmental reorganization plan that is accompanying the layoffs.
Jim Adams, an AFSCME Ohio Council 8 staff representative, said it’s unclear how many of those who received notices will actually lose their jobs because they can exercise seniority- based job-transfer rights and because it’s unknown how many JFS workers will retire and how many current employees will get the newly posted jobs.
Beyond that, he declined to comment until he meets with Genetin on Monday.
In addition to the AFSCME group, layoff notices went to two United Auto Workers-represented income-maintenance supervisors on Sept. 21, with an Oct. 13 effective date. Genetin said both of them plan to retire.
Also getting such notices that day were two Teamster-represented Child Support Enforcement Agency lawyers, but Oct. 21 is the effective date for those notices.
Two occupied, nonunion positions also will be abolished by year’s end, one by layoff and the other by retirement, Genetin said.
Under the reorganization, the department will employ a case-banking system that is used by a majority of Ohio counties, Genetin said.
In the current system, in which one caseworker handles a case from start to finish, a case stalls if that worker is absent due to illness, she said.
Under the new system, one employee group will concentrate on in-person intake interviews, another on telephone inquiries and another on processing changes in cases, she said. “It’ll allow us to be more flexible in how we deploy the work force,” she said of the new system.
When a planned increase in the department’s telephone-system capacity takes effect, the department plans to engage in telephone interviewing, which is faster, more efficient and more convenient because it doesn’t require clients to travel to JFS offices, Genetin said.
The department has suffered a $5 million combined loss in federal and state funds over the past two years. To cope with a series of cuts in state funding, JFS imposed a hiring freeze in January 2008. It also terminated its contracts with various social-service agencies earlier this year to save about $850,000.
As to whether any more layoff notices will be generated, Genetin said: “It depends on what happens with the state budget.”
Comments
Im against anyone losing a job in these times, but at the same time I have been to some of these offices and have seen some of these employees standing around doing nothing. Once when I was finished with my business I stayed just to watch one employee talk on ther phone with relatives for nearly two and a half hours straight. I can only hope that it was that type of employee that got the ax, not one of the worthwhile hard working ones.
I as well hate to see people lose jobs, BUT these people (the whole bunch of them) are sorry excuses for human beings. Good for them. Its time for them to be the ones looking for help now and i hope where ever they go they get treated like trash like they no doubt treated people there.
all I wanna say to the last few comments is you have no clue what we go thru at JFS as caseworkers. NONE so until you have sat in our seats, check ur comments! As in every place of employment you have your few that personalities a dry you cannot judge "the whole bunch" we are human we are stressed ,trying to keep up with our overloaded caseloads. We are not free from the same life stresses of those who sit in front of us. So don't make judgement on us. remember GOD HATES UGLY!
transplant,
I can safely say that I have seen firsthand that only about 25 percent of the jfs employees I have ever met actually do anything other than loaf all day long. I ma very familiar with their offices and most of the staff at offices throughout the valley. They should be quiet and glad that it wasn't more jobs gone.
Watched 2 1/2 hours while someone talked on the telephone, really...get a life. No one in our office is one the telephone for 2 1/2 hours. No one. Evidentally comments are from those who were not eligible for benefits for which they applied. Staff follow guidlines set forth by federal, state, and county government, if you're not happy with the guidelines..vote. Please understand even civil servants are entitled to break and lunch times. People with the attitudes, prejudices, and temperments as portrayed in previous comments could not do my job. Thank goodness, who needs coworkers like that.
watched while a worker was on the telephone for 2 1/2 hours, that cant be...our phones don't work for that long at one time...comments like these give our clients a bad name.
needschange,
you are so wrong so so wrong you have no clue what goes on behind the waiting room doors and if you are behind the doors its for no more than a hour or so. Stop making us look like lazy workers. WE ARE NOT. I work very hard and so does my coworkers. Losing us will only hurt the ones in need.
Not enough Commissioner's, chop another fifty next week, and another fifty a week later. Just put out automated food stamps machines; they put in their Ohio welfare card and out pops the stamps; automate the place and save the taxpayers some money, too.
Hey Lost wow u make alot of posts I see..............all times of the day to wow I am so done arguing with you oldtimers that post all day long. I have to work tommorrow! sleep well
Hey Lost...Right on.
Transplant, you tell me when a person only waits "not more than an hour or so." Since when is 8 A.M to 2 P.M one hour? Is that some caseworker math?
lost, so that's how you think it works, pop a card in and out pops food stamps, no wonder you think we're all lazy, there's much more to casemanagement than popping cards. Phone centers however may be a future means, just like the employment office, we see how well that works.
formerytowner, ytowntransplant clearly stated "once you get behind the waiting room doors, you're not there for more than an hour or so" No one has waited from 8am-2pm in a casemanagers office, please try to comprehend what you are reading. There are only so many casemanagers, who can only interview and process so many cases each day. Your wait time from 8am to 2pm tells the tale with full staff, we will do our best with less staff, but we're only human--just like you.
hey former,
what ur waiting on is a intake you come in make application and they schedule u with a caseworker we are each assigned a time eachday to do a intake if your assigned to a worker with a 1:00 intake slot that means the other slots are all full and u were givin the next avaible worker we have appointments all day, so if my intake time is 1:00 and i have appointment at 1215 sorry u have to wait your turn. You guys just dont understand how it works. This new casebanking is supposed to help fix this we will see how it works. Like I said watch ur comments if you dont know how it works!!
JFS is a joke, And believe me, I wasnt the one who was forced to wait. I sat with someone I was assisting because she couldn't make her way to the office on her own. So kiss it. I actually volunteered my time to help someone who needed it, instead of watching the time clock go round while planning a family get together.
and also, the few bad apples rule doesnt work here either, because it wasn't just one employee that was this lazy.
I suggest instead of posting how wonderful you are on the vindicator website, you should either
1) get back to work or,
2) look for a new job where you can slack off.
Boardmanneedschange,
no need to talk nasty to me, I am stating facts here from my point of view. And BTW I am off work when I am posting so I can post to my little hearts content. And I dont need to look for another job I like my Job busy as it maybe. You dont know what ur talking about plain and simple. This ends any further posts about this because I go to sleep at night with a clean conscience. I dont need to put people down like u. How do you sleep at night?