Westover Field in Martell will retain its airport manager, who was spared one of seven layoff notices issued Tuesday by supervisors. Photo by: Raheem Hosseini

Layoffs have hit, a branch library is closed and unpaid furloughs are under discussion in Amador County government.

A sizable crowd in supervisors' chambers Tuesday sat silently as the gloomy message was disseminated.

No public safety positions were cut as Amador County supervisors reluctantly agreed to lay off seven regular employees. The county's airport manager, David Sheppard, was spared the full axe, seeing his position retained at 60 percent of salary after being originally targeted for elimination the prior week.

County Administrative Officer Terri Daly said a trimmed staff should be able to maintain current levels of service, although expanded services are now out of the picture.

Facing a multi-million-dollar budget shortfall for fiscal year 2008-09, supervisors cut the equivalent of more than a half-dozen full-time positions. The Sutter Creek branch of the county library was closed as a result.

"We face a $3.6 million deficit this year," Daly said. "This year impacts next."

Full-time positions are cut for two building inspectors, a home-visit nurse and a Web site director. Part-time positions are cut for a library assistant and for an Agriculture Department staff member.

Lack of money to expand services led Daly to recommend cutting the position of Web site director and reducing the hours of the airport manager's position, she said.

"We deeply regret the fact that we were forced into laying off employees," said board Chairman Ted Novelli in a release following the decision. "The state of the economy and paralysis at the state level left us no choice."

The county's action follows a spate of recent layoffs, mandatory furloughs and similar actions at all levels of California government. Tacked onto heavier cuts made earlier, Tuesday's moves reduce the county's payroll by a total of 17.5 percent over the past two years, Daly said.

"We have worked hard to keep the number of layoffs to a bare minimum," Daly said in the county's press release. "Originally, I projected that we would need 20 to 30 layoffs. The current action involved only seven employees, which is less than two-tenths of 1 percent of the county workforce."

Eleven county employees came forward for voluntary layoffs in December, bringing the total number of county terminations to 18, closer to the mark Daly originally envisioned. Laid-off employees were given three weeks pay and placed on recall lists in case the budget situation improves.

District 1 Supervisor John Plasse noted that county salaries in the past eight years had risen to consume more than 60 percent of total revenues, up from 48 percent. Daly said that proportion should drop next year to around 55 percent.

The state might choose to defer payments to counties that help fund local service programs that the state mandates, officials agreed. That means a next likely budget-cutting move for Amador County is work toward an unpaid furlough policy such as the state has adopted.

"I think we're going to get hit hard by the state in deferrals," predicted District 2 Supervisor Richard Forster. "If we go to furloughs, we wouldn't be looking at mass layoffs."

District 5 Supervisor Brian Oneto said under a furlough policy, "everybody takes a little hit."

Each of seven collective bargaining units representing county employees might be drawn into negotiations. One of those representatives told the Ledger Dispatch that supervisors' decision to continue its legal battle against a proposed Indian casino near unincorporated Buena Vista was salt in the wound for beleaguered county workers. "We're being told to cinch up our belts ... and I'm not seeing the same kind of prudent cost-saving decisions," the representative said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. "We're muffled because of a fear of retaliation. We don't want our departments to suffer because we spoke up."

The county last month appealed to a federal district judge to overturn his dismissal of the county's lawsuit. On Feb. 6, the U.S. Department of the Interior, the defendant in the case, filed a memorandum in opposition to the county's motion to alter the judgment.

The money the county spent on its motion comes from its legal defense fund. The representative acknowledged money not used on the motion would be spent on some other outside legal issue.