State worker cuts 'made us feel like we didn't matter'

Liz Ulmer heard the words coming out of her supervisor's mouth, but she couldn't process them.

Not yet. Not after 34 years working in the same IT group with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Things have changed at the agency, her supervisor said. Your job is being automated. Your services are no longer needed.

"I was totally shocked," said Ulmer, 58, of Tallahassee. "I was just numb. I couldn't believe this was happening."

She was told July 1 to clean out her desk and turn in her badge by the end of the day, she said. She was also told it would be her last day, though she'd go on annual leave and remain on the payroll through early August.

Ulmer managed to keep her composure in the upstairs office at the DEP complex on Blair Stone Road. Her poker face wouldn't crack until later.

"I didn't cry in the room because I wouldn't give them the satisfaction," she said. "I cried after. I'm still hurt."

Dozens of state-agency workers lost their jobs under Florida's nearly $79-billion budget for fiscal year 2016, approved by the GOP-led Legislature in special session and signed by Gov. Rick Scott in June. More than 1,235 full-time-equivalent positions were slashed and nearly 420 positions were added, for a net decrease of about 815.

According to state budget documents, about 170 of the positions eliminated in the new budget were estimated to have been filled. The vast majority of those — nearly 157 — were within the Florida Department of Health.

DEP officials told Ulmer the loss of her job had nothing to do with the governor or budget cuts, she said. Her termination letter, dated the first day of the new fiscal year, said changes in her job duties as well as agency needs "made it necessary to re-evaluate the need for your position." Dee Ann Miller, a spokeswoman for DEP, said her position was eliminated "as a result of process improvements within our IT division," not because of the budget.

Ulmer, who made about $40,000 a year, had been a state worker for more than half her life, going to work for DEP when she was just 24. Only a few years from retirement, she was counting on a nest egg from her participation in DROP, the state's Deferred Retirement Option Program.

But because she was laid off with more than three years left to go in the five-year program, she said her lump-sum payout will be less than half of what she was expecting, money she was counting on to pay off her house.

"It's just scary," she said. "I don't know if I'll have enough money to live or if I'll find another job. There are lots of other state workers that got laid off, so there are a lot of people competing for what jobs there are. I'm older now. Who's going to want to hire a 58-year-old when they can hire a 25-year-old?"

Cuts from Tallahassee to Miami

Gov. Scott has taken credit for creating about 900,000 private-sector jobs since taking office in early 2011. And in July, he bragged that Florida had seen 44 consecutive months of private-sector job growth. But he has simultaneously slashed positions in the state-agency workforce at a faster clip than any other governor in recent memory, cutting nearly 11,000 positions during his first term alone.

As part of his "Keep Florida Working" budget for the 2016 fiscal year, Scott asked state agencies to trim their payrolls by 5 percent, which, he said, would save the state more than a quarter-billion dollars. The former CEO of a hospital chain, Scott has said he expects state agencies to make "productivity gains" both now and in the future.

House Democratic Leader Mark Pafford of West Palm Beach pointed out that Florida already has the leanest state workforce per capita in the country. The most recent state workforce report, for fiscal year 2014, said Florida had the lowest ratio of state employees to population — 108 per 10,000 residents — and that state personnel costs the average Floridian $37 a month, less than half the national average of $76.

"Are we really functioning like we could as a state?" he asked. "There are lots of very important responsibilities that the state has toward meeting the expectations of 20 million people. When you're continually hacking away at the basic substructure of our government, are we putting ourselves in a position where it's going to be more expensive to catch up someday?"

In May and June, before the new fiscal year began, state agencies sent more than 125 notices to workers that they were losing their jobs, not including notices involving poor conduct, failure to complete probationary periods or related reasons, according to records obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat.

Agency workers who got layoff or termination notices over the two months ranged from janitors to attorneys, in towns from Tallahassee to Miami.

The reasons stated in the layoff notices were many: budget cuts, outsourcing, revenue reductions, lapsing grants, changes in business practices, revenue reductions, a loss of local, state or federal funding. Some of the notices gave no reason at all.

Temporary workers at the bottom of the state-agency food chain, OPS or "other personal services" workers, were told they couldn't appeal their dismissals. Those at the top, selected exempt service workers who serve at the pleasure of their agency, were told the same thing. Career-service workers, who normally can appeal terminations, were told their dismissals couldn't be challenged.

"Consequences of a workforce reduction are not disciplinary actions and, therefore, cannot be appealed," DOH told its affected workers in the lay-off notices.

Will Florida 'still be ready?'

Emilie Cooper, a biological defense coordinator with the Bureau of Public Health Laboratories in Pensacola, learned she was losing her job in May, when higher-ups at DOH visited the facility and held one-on-one meetings with staff.

"The bureau chief said that my position was still funded, but the place in which I do my job would no longer be open," Cooper said. "She said unfortunately due to budget cuts, DOH needed to cut a certain number of jobs. So they closed the entire lab here in Pensacola."

Along with the Pensacola location, DOH ran labs in Jacksonville, Miami and Tampa designed to respond to public-health emergencies, including a bio-terrorism attack. The agency opted to consolidate the facilities, shutting the Pensacola lab June 30.

Cooper, a 35-year-old molecular biologist who ran the bio-terrorism lab in Pensacola, said DOH laid off eight full-time employees as part of the closure, though she was allowed to stay on into August to help shut down the facility. She went to work for DOH in late 2012, earning about $39,000 a year.

"I was shocked," she said. "And then I was angry. And then I was just sort of numb. It hurt our feelings. And it made us feel like we didn't matter."

The public health labs work with county health departments, law enforcement and others, conducting a variety of diagnostic screenings, monitoring and other services involving everything from sexually transmitted diseases to food-borne outbreaks.

The labs are capable of checking for anthrax, smallpox and more than 150 chemicals in case of terrorist attack. After Ebola cases surfaced in the U.S. last fall, the Miami lab was one of the first dozen or so in the country capable of testing patient samples for the disease.

Cooper, whose resume includes more than three years with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said she's concerned that with the lab's closure, the state will be less prepared to respond to health emergencies.

"You can't keep cutting resources and people and facilities and expect that when the next public health crisis happens, that we'll still be ready," she said.

But agency officials said the closure will have no impact on the public.

"All necessary testing capability remains available through Florida's well-established public health laboratories in Jacksonville, Miami and Tampa," said Tiffany Cowie, a DOH spokeswoman. "No services are impacted because of this transition."

'An opportunity to move on'

Abraham Scott, 52, of Tallahassee, didn't despair when he was laid off June 5 from his temporary job processing mail for the Department of Economic Opportunity. Scott, who has a master's degree in social work, saw it as a chance to pursue a job in his chosen field.

A veteran of the first Gulf War, Scott served 20 years in the Army, retiring in 2002 and joining the private sector. He stopped working briefly in 2012 because of injuries and illnesses before accepting the DEO job.

"It was just to get my feet back into the door and have something to do," he said. "It was never a career move. I was always looking for (other) employment. I was working below my skill set, so it was an opportunity for me to move on."

Other workers rebounded from their layoffs, some with help from the state. One of the workers cut from the Pensacola public health lab found another job at the Jacksonville lab, Cowie said.

The Department of Management Services laid off 13 custodial workers in June in Jacksonville, Pensacola and Marathon. Seven of them accepted new jobs with other agencies or state vendors, while three declined opportunities at other agencies, and three others retired, said Natalee Singleton, spokeswoman for DMS.

"The DMS Office of Human Resources, in a proactive, hands-on effort, worked daily to assist these employees in the job search and application process," she said. "They secured interviews for new employment opportunities for all 13 employees."

Many of the state workers were offered the right of first interview with any agency with a vacancy, as long as they were qualified to apply for the job. They also were offered help through the DEO's Reemployment and Emergency Assistance Coordination Team, which works with regional workforce boards and others to help dislocated workers.

Cooper said the state offered her no severance package and only the opportunity for a first interview with another agency.

"That's basically all you get," she said. "There's not much more they can do for you."