The city of Denver announced plans to cut funding from its Parks and Recreation department by $4.3 million in order to reallocate resources towards dealing with an influx of migrants.
“The City of Denver is trying to avoid the word ‘layoffs’ when it comes to impending budget cuts. So instead, they’re telling some hourly on-call employees they may have their hours reduced to zero,” according to a 9News report.
This will result in reduced work hours or no hours for some on-call city employees, such as lifeguards, coaches and front desk workers.
While not officially termed layoffs, some on-call employees’ hours may be reduced to zero.
Denver Parks and Recreations director Jolon Clark wrote in a statement, “The reduction in hours of operation and programs will affect the number of hours worked by many on-call, some to the point where they may not receive any hours.”
“The final decisions on hours for any individual position have not been made yet,” his statement continued.
“The number of hours an on-call works can vary from individual to individual and by the season,” wrote Clark.
He added, “Some on-calls can support multiple functions, some may only teach one class all year long.”
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston criticized lack of federal support for the city’s migrant crisis, estimated to cost $180 million this year, and said gridlock in Washington has prevented an effective solution.
However, he maintained that Denver employees facing fewer hours would not be considered layoffs.
Mayor Johnston previously said, “These direct impacts on DMV do not involve layoffs, nor do Parks and Rec involve layoffs of our current employees.”
“We will have hourly workers that will have fewer hours. If we reduce your hours and you’re an on-call worker, that’s true. We will have on-call workers that we won’t hire for the summer that we will have hired otherwise. This does reduce new hires that we would’ve brought on,” explained the mayor at the time.
He insisted, “I’m incredibly proud of how city team members have stepped up over the past year, but it is clear that the federal government is not going to support our city.”
The cuts aim to help the city manage costs associated with a significant migrant situation stressing its resources.
Johnston explained, “If we had more resources at the border, we had more security, we had more administrative officers to actually process people, we could do it more effectively and efficiently. I think the political gridlock in D.C. has kept them from being able to respond in the way they wanted to.”
