BRISTOL, Va. – The first of more than 70 area Virginia Department of Transportation employees received pink slips Monday, as the agency strives to meet a legislative mandate for its number of employees.
Workers at two of six offices within the agency’s Bristol district were notified they were losing their jobs, VDOT spokeswoman Michelle Earl said. The notifications are expected to continue throughout the week as part of almost 700 layoffs statewide.
“This is the third and final phase of the layoffs that began last June and designed to get us to the 7,500 [employee] number mandated by the General Assembly,” Earl said. “We’ll be talking with employees through Friday. Change is difficult and this is hard on all of the employees.”
The layoffs are part of the agency’s blueprint to restructure and address a $4.6 billion shortfall in transportation revenue.
A total of 73 VDOT employees across Southwest Virginia are scheduled to lose their jobs by April. This follows a cutback of 76 workers in 2009.
“We have strategically shifted our staffing structure to eliminate redundancies in administrative and business support functions, while ensuring our emergency and incident response commitments are met statewide,” Commissioner David Ekern said in a written statement.
The agency’s first wave of reductions in June 2009 reduced 450 hourly wage positions, while the second wave last fall eliminated about 500 full-time positions across the state.
As part of the restructuring, the agency plans to close three residency offices in Jonesville, Abingdon and Tazewell, Earl said.
“Smyth and Bland counties will be handled by the Wytheville residency, Wise will take care of Lee and Scott counties, while Lebanon will take care of Washington and Tazewell counties,” Earl said.
This round of layoffs includes workers at the residency offices targeted for closure, some maintenance employees and some at the district office in Bristol, Earl said.
VDOT officials continue trying to fill vacancies with employees targeted for layoffs, Ekern said.
“This system allowed us to place the vast majority of affected employees in previous layoff phases who wished to continue working at VDOT. We are doing everything possible to provide employees with choices during this difficult transition,” Ekern said in the statement.
dmcgee@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2532
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