October 18, 2016
By Paul Joseph, News Director
In a surprise to most people other than to Clinton city leaders, layoffs are underway at the city.
The action is a direct result of the downturn in Western Oklahoma primarily due to the drop in oil and gas prices around the world. Cities and municipalities in Oklahoma derive all of their funding from local sales taxes. That’s what’s driving their economies and how they pay city workers, operate waste disposal systems and hire police officers and more. When sales taxes slide, something’s got to give.
Clinton’s latest three month sales tax income figure totaled 14 percent less than what the city received only two years ago.
Clinton City Manager Mark Skiles says he’s already spoken to some employees about being laid off. He says the word lay off may be a little strong of a word, but some have already been given notice.
Skiles said he could see that layoffs could be a possibility – if the worst case scenario happened –when the city’s budget for 2016-17 was being prepared. He said then that when he first presented a working draft budget, it had a deficit of $1.267 million dollars.
Now, apparently, the worst case scenario is here and layoffs are being made only as a last resort.
Skiles says this is the hardest part of his job as city manager.
Skiles says the working budget was tight even before the last couple months came about. That’s when the bottom fell out.
Before the job cuts, the city had approximately 90 full time employees. Skiles isn’t privy to say who is getting cut or even how many are – partially because he can’t and partially because he’s not sure how far the cuts will go.
Skiles says it’ll be tricky knowing when there have been enough layoffs to balance the budget, but he does know what to look for and when.
Skiles admits that no city employees have left their jobs as of yet, but a few have been placed on notice.
– 30 –