The Herald-Times
SPENCER Owen County Auditor Sheila Reeves is glad she delayed hiring someone to replace an employee who recently quit.
“I didn’t want to hire someone and then have to let them go,” she said.
And that’s what she would have faced.
During a three-hour meeting fraught with talk of the rural county’s money troubles, Owen County Council members said recent 20% cuts across the board did make a $600,000 dent in the county’s $2 million shortfall in the 2021 budget.
But it wasn’t nearly enough, less than a third of what’s necessary.
So council members voted that each county department must lay off one employee by Aug. 15. That’s about 10 county workers. “People are upset, wondering if they will be the one that gets cut,” Reeves said from her courthouse office Tuesday afternoon.
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