City official discusses furlough of employees

JACKSON, Tenn. — The City of Jackson announced furloughs for many of its employees on Friday.

A release from Mayor Scott Conger says the furloughs will impact 193 city employees.

“What that consists of are 60 full-time employees, and the remainder are part-time, maybe summer employees; people hired to do programs and be a part of those programs that we won’t be able to do,” said Mayor’s assistant Alex Reed.

These furloughs come as the city of Jackson faces a $4 million budget deficit for the 2019-2020 fiscal year, and possibly an even a larger one for the next fiscal year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The city expects these furloughs will save about $140,000 per pay period for the next four pay periods in the fiscal year, which Reed says isn’t enough.

“This is still so new to us on what’s going to happen, and the projections are still so new and so raw, those will keep fine tuning themselves,” Reed said.

“As our employees are furloughed, especially our full-time ones, we’re going to transmit those names to the unemployment office to hopefully speed up their benefits package,” Reed said.

Mayor Scott Conger says in addition to local businesses facing financial impact from the pandemic, the city is also facing it.

He says the city knew this would happen after placing restrictions on the local economy, but feels that people’s lives are more important than money.

The city will cover the furloughed employees’ medical expenses. Those employees will also receive unemployment benefits up to $875 a week.

“It doesn’t mean that we don’t value them. It doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate them. It means that we have a bad hand, and we’re trying to do the best with it with what we have. I don’t want any of our employees who are on the furlough to think they’re not valued because they truly are,” Reed said.

The furloughs begin May 2. Reed says department heads and Mayor Conger are also taking a pay cut, starting at the same time.

Furloughed employees have a return to work date of August 24.