Elmont Online

ALBANY -- While state employees worry about potential layoffs due to consolidations and the possible rejection of a labor deal, companies that provide outside contractors to New York's agencies are already following state orders to cut jobs.

Twenty-seven contractors who work for the state Department of Transportation are being let go this week, agency spokesman Bill Reynolds confirmed Tuesday.

"We needed to reduce expenditures, and this is one area we identified for reductions," said Reynolds, who added that the actions were technically not state layoffs.

The cuts are coming in various locations across the state. Scott Johnson, an information technology manager at DOT's Buffalo office, said he knew of "at least six or seven" being let go from the agency's Hornell office in Steuben County. The workers repaired printers and computers, he said.

Impact of the job cuts on DOT's core functions -- such as fixing roads and bridges -- remained unclear.

"No details yet on who received notice, but I expect the impact will be immediate on some of our projects," wrote Todd B. Westhuis, acting director of DOT's Office of Traffic Safety and Mobility, in a memo obtained by the Times Union.

Westhuis' office oversees tasks such as permit applications from land developers and companies performing road work.

Johnson believed the job losses were prompted by the roughly 10 percent funding reduction ordered for most state agencies this year, with savings coming from the "non-personnel" side of the ledger.

"Personnel" in most instances would refer to state employees, most of whom are represented by unions -- who have complained loudly in recent years about state use of contractors.

The new round of reductions "is spreading my workforce a little bit thinner," said Johnson. "It will take longer to fix computers, and we're spending a lot of time fixing them."

He didn't expect it would impede actual road repairs, because DOT employees simply move their work to operable computers if one of the machines goes down.