The mood inside City Hall was gloomy Friday as nearly 1,300 employees were told not to return to work and department heads huddled, making contingency plans to deal with the massive layoffs.
The workers laid off were paid from federal Community Development Block Grant funds, which ran out Friday. Additional funding has been stalled in the battle between Mayor Harold Washington and majority-bloc city council opponents.
Meantime, the head of the city Department of Human Services worked out an agreement with the state to use $20 million of Illinois` corporate fund to keep day-care centers funded by the department open through July 12.
Fallout from the funding cuts began to spread outside City Hall. City officials said that in addition to the layoffs in 20 departments, 150 of the 200 social-service agencies funded by grants would be forced to close.
Judith Walker, commissioner of the Department of Human Services, spent Friday with staff members and representatives of day-care centers and state officials, working out the contingency plan to use state funds to keep the centers open through July 12.
The $20 million will fund 55 agencies in the Department of Human Services, said Laura Washington, the mayor`s deputy press secretary.
In the Department of Economic Development, William Taylor Garcia, assistant to the 1st deputy of the department, was one of 109 workers laid off. His department was reduced to 6 employees.
”My case isn`t so bad,” said Garcia. ”I have savings and I can get by for a month.” Garcia attends the University of Chicago and is married to a full-time student there.
”Most people are scrambling and already looking for work,” he said.
”One secretary has five children to support and a bedridden husband. Another has no one and is very ill. What are they going to do?”
A proposal to continue emergency funding through July 15, introduced this week by Washington, is stalled in the City Council Finance Committee, led by Ald. Edward Burke (14th), a leader of the anti-administration majority bloc. That committee is not scheduled to meet until July 8.
An ordinance for the complete $126.7 million in community development funding, which would also prevent the layoffs, was approved by the council, but Washington said Thursday he would veto it.
The version passed by the council substituted for Washington`s plan with an ordinance that would shift $12 million to projects in majority-bloc wards. Also at issue is control of community-development contracts. The council`s version gives it approval rights for contracts of $10,000 or more. The previous year, it had approval rights for contracts of $50,000 or more.
