Holiday shutdown likely

For Thanksgiving, most of Lawrence County's courthouse employees may be getting the week off, without pay.

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And the same thing for Christmas.

On Friday, county commissioners are likely to approve closing the courthouse for the two holiday weeks leading up to the end of this year in an effort to cut expenses.
Commissioner Dan Vogler said the austerity measure is necessary because of the state's failure - now almost three months into the fiscal year - to assemble a budget. The county's 2009 calendar year budget called for spending about $95 million, with more than $70 million coming from state-funded programs.

"It's not the fault of our employees or anything the elected officials have done," Vogler said. "It's because the state hasn't done its job."

Up until this week, the commissioners had planned to order nonunion employees to take two weeks of unpaid flex-time leave and asked that the two unions that represent county workers vote on the two-weeks-leave plan.

Last week, the county's American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees union voted 25-22 to ratify the unpaid leave. But Construction and General Laborers Union Local 964, which represents about 50 workers, declined to vote on the measure.

"They essentially said they'll put the decision back in the hands of the commissioners," Vogler said.

Ultimately, though, another factor came into play. Vogler said the commissioners had hoped to close the courthouse for either one day each week or for two one-week blocks, because either option would save utility costs by using fewer lights and less heat during the closings.

But until earlier this week, Domenick Motto, the county's president judge, had said either move would be unduly disruptive to the court system.

Vogler said Motto changed his mind after discussing the possible closings with courthouse staff and said the court system could continue to function with the two-week closings.

The courthouse was originally scheduled to have been closed on three of those days - Nov. 26 and 27 (Thanksgiving and the following day) and Dec. 25 for Christmas - which would make the shutdowns less disruptive to county business, Vogler said.

Reports over the weekend that Gov. Ed Rendell and the state Legislature have reached a budget agreement notwithstanding, the shutdowns would probably remain in effect even if the state ratifies a budget quickly.

Vogler, who has been in Harrisburg this week on county business unrelated to the fiscal crisis, said the Legislature is probably in recess for the rest of this week, which means no budget vote could be held until at least Monday.

Even when a spending plan is passed, the county won't begin seeing the funding for three-quarters of its own budget for some time, Vogler said. And when that money does start coming in, those funds will probably be less than the county has budgeted for, he said.

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