[Texas Education Agency] TEA to lay off 178 workers [Thousands of pink slips for state workers]

Austin American-Statesman ^ | July 12, 2011 | Farzad Mashhood

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The Texas Education Agency said Tuesday that it is laying off 178 employees this week. Those are among the first of thousands of state government layoffs expected in the coming weeks.

The TEA decision has been months in the making, as the agency seeks to reduce its staff by 32 percent to cope with budget cuts ordered by the Texas Legislature..

This week's layoffs come on the heels of 91 layoffs by the agency in February, with another 74 people retiring, quitting or transferring this year.

At the start of the legislative session in January, lawmakers proposed a 2012-13 budget that a Legislative Budget Board analysis said would cut 9,600 positions statewide in an attempt to balance a budget that spends 8 percent less than the current one. By the time the Legislature passed a budget in late May, the board estimated that 5,700 state government jobs would be lost, a 2.4 percent reduction from 2011 to 2013.

[snip]

[TEA] Staffers being laid off, all of whom are in Austin..

........"there are hardly any departments that are not impacted."

..."When (senior managers) tried to determine which positions to keep, they looked at which employees were performing critical duties for the agency, and they also looked at flexibility," Ratcliffe said. "We need employees who can adapt to change."

Two weeks ago, the Texas Water Development Board, a state agency that does long-term water planning,.... Almost all of the cuts are being made to the staff in Austin........

In late June, the 3,000-employee Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced more than 100 layoffs ...About half of the layoffs are being done in Austin.....

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I agree.

And that title wasn’t to “bash” Bush, it just is the title.

I really enjoyed reading all the discussion on this thread.