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SALT LAKE CITY -- It's been a rough two days for employees at the Utah Transit Authority. The company has confirmed it is laying off some of its workforce.
Nearly 30 employees are part of the layoff. UTA officials say they've been trying to save money for months and they had no other choice.
"With the recession, everybody's having to tighten their belts, and UTA, like every organization, is having to become leaner and more efficient." Gerry Carpenter, UTA spokesman
"It's a different world today. With the recession, everybody's having to tighten their belts, and UTA, like every organization, is having to become leaner and more efficient," says UTA spokesman Gerry Carpenter.
On Thursday, nearly 30 UTA employees started receiving the news they were losing their jobs. Carpenter says the cuts were a last resort after months of trying to make up their shortfall through attrition.
"UTA's budget is down about $40 million because of reduced sales tax revenues from the economic recession," Carpenter says.
UTA says the cuts came from all over the organization -- from entry-level workers to managers.
"The hard part about this is it does affect human lives," Carpenter says. "There are people who have worked here for many, many years that have lost their jobs; and we'lll miss them, and we wish there were another solution."
The layoffs come on the heels of the public outcry over the high salaries of UTA's top executives. CEO John Inglish makes well over $300,000 a year.
"Our top executives have also taken a pay cut. They voluntarily have given up the performance incentive payout that they would have normally received this year, which is about a 10 to 15 percent reduction in their total compensation," Carpenter says.
He says if they took a much greater pay cut, the executives may not stick around.
"It's important to have good management in place to run the organization, and it's important to retain that management," Carpenter says.
Not every employee impacted by the layoffs has been notified. UTA hopes they'll all get their notices by Monday.
"We're really doing our very best to ease this process for these individuals as much as possible," Carpenter says.
UTA says it has doubled the severance packages for the employees who are losing their jobs. Company leaders hope this is the end of the layoffs but say it all has to do with sales tax revenues.
E-mail: jstagg@ksl.com
