Up to 150 Lake County workers may face layoffs

BY BILL DOLAN, Times of Northwest Indiana
bdolan@nwitimes.com

CROWN POINT | Lake County government could lay off as many as 150 employees by year's end, county officials said.

County officials have publicly resisted thinning employee ranks in the past, despite years of complaints about unbearable property tax bills -- until now.

"We want to reduce employment by 5 percent," Lake County Commissioner Fran DuPey, D-Hammond, said. The county payroll included 2,026 full-time and 979 part-time employees as of last week.

The 5 percent work force reduction is one of dozens of recommended budget reductions the county government's financial committee was contemplating as late as Thursday afternoon.

Lake County Councilman Larry Blanchard, R-Crown Point, a committee member, said the list likely will be finalized and made public later this month. He said the cuts will affect many branches of government, including the courts and law enforcement.

The list is a starting point for budget negotiations, but even talk of layoffs is in sharp contrast to public guarantees officials made less than two years ago that there would be no job cuts.

They didn't count on the Legislature passing House Bill 1001 this spring, which will cap individual tax bills between 1 percent and 3 percent of assessed value beginning next year.

The caps will cause tax revenues for local government to drop. The council's mission for the 2009 budget is to cut current spending levels from $10 million to $15 million.

Commissioner Roosevelt Allen, D-Gary, said he will resist any effort to impose across-the-board layoffs.

"Some smaller departments are skeletal already," Allen said. "You have to start looking at the revenue side. I was a proponent of a county-option income tax because I realized this dilemma would occur if we didn't enact that tax."

Blanchard said he likes one of the recommendations to sell or lease county property. He said the Lake County parks department shouldn't be in the business of running banquet halls or golf courses.

Allen said he would charge rent to the federally funded High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force, which has been residing rent free in Westwind Manor, a former county nursing home.

"HIDTA wants to pay $400,000 to lease space in a bank building at 85th and Broadway. Why can't they pay county government $150,000 to stay where they are?" Allen said.

One cost-cutting measure that will go into effect as early as Monday entails putting the county's highway department to a 10-hour workday, four days per week, to eliminate down time and gasoline use of work crews traveling to job sites.