About 100 city workers were laid off or forced to retire Wednesday, the victims of belt-tightening across Baltimore's governmental landscape.
The city's labor commissioner said she had a list of 122 terminated employees but predicted that the eventual number would be slightly smaller because two departments, transportation and public works, were still in the process of moving some workers into different positions as a way of saving their jobs. Some are being asked to accept demotions, Commissioner Deborah F. Moore-Carter said.
The layoffs, which came on the last day of the fiscal year, were the final piece of the city's months-long effort to solve a $121 million budget deficit.
They were not unexpected. While Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the City Council negotiated the mix of budget cuts and new taxes needed to close the gap, the city sent 600 layoff notices to union leaders. The budget approved last week by the council restored most of those positions.
Glennard S. Middleton, president of the AFSCME local that represents the city's blue-collar workers, said the layoffs could have been a lot worse. "The number has been a moving target for the last two months," he said. "It is positive that we're not going to have massive layoffs, but there should be no layoffs whatsoever. These workers are the fabric of the city."
Middleton was careful, however, to credit Rawlings-Blake and her staff for restoring many of the jobs that had been slated for elimination. "It's a great achievement," he said, even if, as he explained, his union is still negotiating with the city on various issues, including furloughs and co-pays for prescription drugs.
Confronted by the deficit when she took office in February, Rawlings-Blake produced a worst-case scenario budget that would have cut hundreds of police officers, closed several fire companies and shuttered local recreation centers. Then she unveiled a package of new taxes and fees to ameliorate the harshest of the cuts. After weeks of negotiations, the council agreed last week to approve increases in the income tax, and in energy, telecommunications and parking fees and, most controversially, the creation of a tariff on bottled beverages.
Ryan O'Doherty, a spokesman for the mayor, said that the question of precisely how many employees are being let go remained in flux. "Some adjustments are still being made," he said, "so a complete, final list of positions by agency is not yet available."
"A number of positions have been saved," Moore-Carter, the labor commissioner, said Wednesday afternoon. "We're actually working on it right now."
She said some employees in public works and transportation were accepting demotions rather than leaving for good. "Our goal is to save as many as possible," Moore-Carter said, adding that the process had not been completed by the close of business Wednesday because it was taking time for the workers to meet with human resources managers to figure out their salary reductions and other matters. Layoff notices for those employees were rescinded, she said.
Moore-Carter said that some employees whose jobs were being eliminated were given the option of retiring if they met certain criteria. As for the people being laid off, the labor commissioner said she had to ensure that union rules governing seniority were respected, with the most recent hires the first to be let go.
Two weeks ago, public works officials told a council subcommittee that the department expected to have to lay off 31 workers, all with three years or less on the job. On Wednesday, M. Celeste Amato, a public works spokeswoman, said the agency might now be looking at 11 layoffs, and perhaps fewer.
"We're working," she said, "on trying to place people in open positions that are still funded."
Layoffs came as a surprise to several workers in the Department of Housing. Although about 70 employees in that agency were given pink slips in June, one laid-off worker said Wednesday that they all had been assured by supervisors that their jobs would be safe if the bottle tax passed.
"We thought that vote would save our jobs," said the employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because, she said, she was planning to apply for another city job and did not want to jeopardize her chances.
She added that all the laid-off employees were encouraged to apply for other city jobs but were given no assurances.
"It almost seems like all of that was much ado about nothing," she said. "Because not only do I not have a job — now I'm getting taxed when I go to the corner store."
Baltimore Sun reporter Brent Jones contributed to this article.