Update: As we noted earlier this morning, according to a phone call from a source inside the building, today Cuyahoga County handed out pink slips to employees in the fiscal office. Around noon, County Executive Ed FitzGerald's office confirmed that 33 employees have been let got.
This afternoon FitzGerald took a couple minutes to address questions from the press. FitzGerald flat out dismissed the suggestion that he was indiscriminately walking the administration halls with an ax, jonesing for fresh county employee blood( at least two of the questions thrown at FitzGerald dramatically contained the word “ax”). The job eliminations were part of an ongoing effort to squeeze out redundancies under the new county organization.
The eliminated positions all came from the fiscal office, which corrals together the former recorder, treasurer, and auditor staffs. None of the layoffs were for cause. The employees were all non-union and included some supervisors. Together the layoffs represented a net saving of $1.7 million. And yeah, this being Cuyahoga County government, someone was related to somebody: according to the Plain Dealer, former county Sheriff Gerald McFaul's daughter, Colleen McFaul Vincelli, and Parma Mayor Dean DePiero's sister Lisa were among the employees let go.
FitzGerald said there would be more staff reductions and both pay decreases and increases in the fiscal office before the end of the year as the evening-out process closes down.
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Ed FitzGerald is laying off workers at the Cuyahoga County auditor's office today, according to a tip this morning from an auditor's office employee. The folks in charge of giving the pink slips are actually there now, the tipster says.
