KINGSTON – Ulster County Government employees who qualify will now be eligible to retire from county employment under an incentive program approved by the county legislature Tuesday night.
The benefit to the county will be the savings of the salaries and benefits of those who leave.
County Legislator Kenneth Ronk said the timing of separations may not coincide with state funding.
“We are going to have a state budget where the governor has the opportunity to change the state budget in the third quarter of the year even with our amount of funding that we are going to get from the state. I think that some of the deadlines are concerning to me, but if they don’t concern the executive’s office, I don’t have a problem with that,” he said.
Meanwhile, County Comptroller March Gallagher issued a memo to County Executive Patrick Ryan and Legislature Chairman David Donaldson projecting a more than $34 million loss of revenue due to the COVID government shutdown and she recommended temporary layoffs of over 340 employees through July 31 as a means of saving $3.1 million. The employees would be shifted over to state and federal unemployment benefits during that timeframe.
