After years of holding back hard on COLAs, we found that we could no longer attract government emeployees in a competitive state market. We surveyed like counties and upped them to be more competitive rate last year. We exchanged a set COLA for long term contracts. We did this with the understanding that if things got tight in the budget, that Dept. heads would have to scale down and lay off employees.
With the state and feds. cutting budgets, this will be the third time we have hacked back on the budget. We are jetisoning any service not absolutely required by law, automating some procedures, raising fees to cover costs on individual services such as permitting and are about to lay off emnployees. The public will see a big change in their local government. Particularly since the Gov. seems to want to balance the budget on our backs.
A very good point for any business students lurking - my office went from three people to one (in one area) by automating a repetitive task tracking function.