There’s been a lot of talk lately about the Jefferson County Road Department layoffs that took place in April of last year (Pine Bluff Commercial article). At the most recent Quorum Court meeting, Judge Robinson confirmed they would not be bringing those employees back this year.
Let’s walk through the Road Department’s employee roster using the image titled “Road Department Layoffs and Hires 2024–2025.” For privacy reasons, I’ve removed employee names. Here’s what each column represents:
- Slot: The budget line item for that employee. The department started the year with enough funding budgeted for 40 employees.
- Title: The employee’s job title.
- Hired: The employee’s hire date.
- Terminated: The employee’s termination date, whether voluntary or involuntary.
- Tenure: How long the employee had been employed by the county at the time of termination.
- Salary: The budgeted salary for the position (which may differ from actual pay).
- Red highlighting: Employees who were laid off.
- Blue highlighting: Employees hired after the layoffs.
- Purple outlines: Currently vacant positions.
The article states that 10 people were laid off. However, I’ve only been able to account for nine. There may indeed be a tenth, but I haven’t been able to identify them. Then there is the employee in Slot 4-8, who was hired after the layoffs (on 5/6/2024) and then terminated a month later (on 6/13/2024). That individual has spoken publicly about being included in the layoffs, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and include them in the count.
A few things stand out in this data. First, since the layoffs, the Road Department has hired four new employees. Three of these filled job titles that matched those of laid-off employees. However, none of the new hires were among those laid off.
Second, if you refer to the above image, titled “Road Department by Tenure at the Time of Layoffs,” you’ll see a breakdown of how long each laid-off employee had worked for the county. Four had been employed for less than a year, which is expected in a layoff scenario. What’s surprising is that the remaining five had been with the county for three to sixteen years, combining for a total of 44 years of service. How does it make sense to let go of employees with over a decade of experience while keeping those who were barely a year in?
I’m not an expert in heavy equipment operations or Road Department logistics. But to me, it seems like those long-serving employees would have been worth retraining or reassigning. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might suspect that this wasn’t truly about budget cuts, but rather a convenient way to remove people who were no longer favored, without having to justify it.
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