On Friday, Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs announced “temporary” 8 week furloughs due to COVID19. Here are the numbers by department and fee office.
PLEASE understand these are not ONLY numbers, they are 366 people and it effects the families (as in more than one) Additionally, these numbers effect the mental health of each person and family.
- Executive Branch Departments: 264
- Libraries: 169
- Health Department: 26
- Engineering and Public Works: 22
- Veterans and Senior Services: 17
- Finance: 7
- Information Technology: 7
- Parks and Recreation: 7
- Procurement: 5
- Mayor’s Office: 2
- Probation and Pretrial Release: 1
- Risk Management: 1
- Benefits: 0
- Regional Forensic Center: 0
- Human Resources: 0
- County offices: 102
- Clerk: 20
- Criminal Court Clerk: 19
- Trustee: 19
- Circuit Court Clerk :16
- Property Assessor: 13
- Register of Deeds: 11
- Law Director: 3
- Chancery Court: 1
The Attorney General, Public Defender and Sheriff have declined to participate.
What Could Happen
Is it possible that a percentage of these furloughs are not temporary and could result in never being called back say like 1 in 4 or up to 25%. That would be a reduction of 91.5 individuals from the payroll. Anyway, on Saturday I posted several questions here and of course Monday afternoon when given the opportunity Knox County Commission opted NOT to ask any questions as I posted here.
It should not be overlooked that 169 of the employees are library employees. It leaves me to believe that our Knox County Libraries will not reopen anytime within the near future?
How does this happen when the City of Knoxville has no lay offs? Knox County has $200 million in the bank. The TVA tower deal looks very stupid right now.