All but a skeleton crew of Johnston City employees are off work until further notice because of the city’s inability to guarantee future payroll.
Mayor Jim Mitchell said non-essential employees were told not to report to work today and were told not to come back until notified of a return date.
The city of about 3,650 people took the drastic step because city funds are depleted, he said.
“The city has borrowed and borrowed and borrowed and we can’t borrow anymore,” Mitchell said. “We are out of funds and when you reach the point where you can’t guarantee payroll, you cannot ask employees to work. We can’t guarantee payroll after this check and we’re going to have to do some juggling to do that.”
Only essential employees will remain on the job.
“We’ve cut everything to a skeleton crew. I tried to leave at least one person in each department and only the people who have to be here will be here,” he said.
Police will be cut to one officer per shift and overtime is eliminated. Any calls that would force overtime will be handled by the police chief or the Williamson County sheriff’s deputies, he said.
The fire department will run as usual for now although out-of-town first responder calls will be answered only if life is in peril.
“We’ve been warning people, telling them for a couple of years now, that we have to cut spending. There’s been a spending freeze for a year now but the spending continued. The chickens have come home to roost,” he said. “The spending is now over.”
Read more: http://thesouthern.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_d8aa81ae-9e1c-11e0-9b31-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1QmQYnv4m
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