34 Taking Severance From City Package To Help City Cope With I-695 Will See Five Department Directors Depart

A severance package designed to deal with tighter budgets under Initiative 695 is being taken by 34 city of Spokane employees, five of whom are department directors.

The City Council created the one-time severance program in the hopes it would reduce the number of layoffs various city departments would be forced to make to meet a 3.7 percent - or $3.6 million - reduction in the city’s budget.

The program appears to have worked.

“At this point I don’t see us making any layoffs,” said Pete Fortin, acting city manager.

The 34 severance packages cost the city $415,000. However, the savings to the city from the departures will easily exceed that over time, Fortin said.

Because the severances will allow departments to reshuffle some positions, the exact savings to the city likely won’t be calculated until the end of the first quarter of 2000, said Collette Greenwood, the city’s director of management and budget.

“The savings will be far greater than the cost, but it won’t all be saved in 2000,” said Fortin, who signed off on the severances Wednesday.

Fortin denied five severance requests that could not show savings equal to three times the cost of the severance, as required under the City Council’s package.

The severance program now is closed. The last day of work for employees granted severances is Jan. 8.

“Basically, they were all at an age where they could retire or have moved on,” Fortin said of the group.

Now the challenge will be to replace five top department directors with decades of experience, especially Charlie Dotson, planning director.

“We have some critical things going on now, like the development of a new comprehensive plan. (Dotson) has been the point person for that, so we will have to fill that somehow,” Fortin said.

Fortin hopes some of the director vacancies can be filled through reorganization of staff.

“I think it’s a difficult time to advertise for hiring department heads with a change in government a year from now,” Fortin said. “There is no security for department heads, you are an at-will employee.”

In November, Spokane voters approved a change in city government to a strong-mayor system, in which the mayor can hire and fire department heads. The mayor currently does not have that power.

Among those taking the severance:

James Smith Jr., human resources director.

John Bjork, city engineer.

Charlie Dotson, director of planning services.

Jim Bennett, retirement director.

Bruce Steele, transportation director.

Gale Olrich, director of wastewater management, had applied for a severance, but decided not to take it.

This sidebar appeared with the story: THE PACKAGE

Under the severance package, employees with at least one year, but less than 11 years, of consecutive service get four weeks of vacation.

For those with more than 10 years but less than 21, the severance is eight weeks’ vacation.

Employees with more than 20 years of consecutive service get 12 weeks’ vacation.

All or part of an employee’s severance may be taken in the form of city-paid health care coverage. The severance is above and beyond what an employee gets in accrued vacation and sick leave.