State employees work final day as layoffs, park closures loom

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2008/11/26/news/doc492da264bd42b483958840.txt

By Kurt Erickson
[e-mail]

SPRINGFIELD -- About 80 state workers were set to punch the clock for what could be their final time Wednesday after losing their jobs to the state's ongoing political and economic upheaval. | List of closing parks, historic sites | Ceiling collapses at Thomson prison | Durbin may ask for ex-Gov. Ryan commutation

With state offices closed on Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving, many of the workers affected by layoffs in three state agencies worked their final day Wednesday before their jobs are officially eliminated Sunday.

The layoffs, combined with Sunday's closure of all or parts of seven state parks and 12 historic sites, are the offspring of a slumping economy and the political infighting between the Chicago Democrats who oversee the executive and legislative branches of Illinois government.

Citing an out-of-balance budget sent to him by lawmakers, Gov. Rod Blagojevich initially threatened to lay off more than 480 workers. The House and Senate then gave him the power to skim money from a number of special funds in order to avoid the cuts.

Blagojevich signed the legislation, but then said the state's financial woes and federal regulations, barred him from restoring all of the threatened cuts, leaving 118 jobs still on the chopping block.

Because some of those 118 employees took other jobs in state government, the final tally for people being laid off now stands at 85.

FULL story at link.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I've visited most of the historic sites

and am saddened at their closing. Ft. de Chartres has been the site of one of the first rendezvous. And Weldon Springs holds fond memories of my grandfather, who took me there and told me about visiting it as a youth in the 1890s.