The list of V.I. government employees to be laid off beginning Tuesday is reportedly being fine-tuned.
Sources close to Government House said that during a Cabinet meeting Monday morning, administration officials said the cuts would be across the board: per diem employees, part-timers, exempt and classified employees will all be cut.
It was not revealed who, specifically, was to be cut first or what criteria were being used.
Gov. Charles W. Turnbull told Radio One news Monday afternoon that certain per-diem and exempt employees would be the first to go. He also announced a series of other austerity measures, most of which — reduced use of government cars and cellular phones, elimination of most travel and the like — supposedly had been in effect already.
The cuts are a result of the Legislature's failure to ratify Turnbull's latest borrowing bill.
Rudolph Krigger Sr., financial adviser to the governor, had warned senators on Friday, when they met to consider the bond bill, that massive layoffs would be the result of the senators' failure to pass it.
The governor has also said publicly that he was considering sending the bill back to the Legislature for another vote, although how that could be accomplished procedurally was not known.
Sen. Allie-Allison Petrus was absent from the legislative session Friday. The vote was split 7-7, thus killing the measure. Petrus was not immediately available Monday afternoon for comment.
Editor's note: For details see Bond Bill Killed.
