Furloughs approved by Kansas City, Mo. City Council Thursday

On Wednesday, the finance committee for Kansas City, Mo. passed a proposal involving furloughing of city staff on to the Kansas City, Mo. City Council.

By the end of Thursday’s city council meeting, the proposal had been approved.

The furloughs are part of the city’s plan to eliminate $50 million from this year’s budget due to a build-up of unexpected COVID-19 costs.

While there are exemptions to the approved city staff furloughs, the decision will affect workers in most departments.

Exemptions include the Kansas City Health Department, Local 42 and Local 3808 members, members of Local 500 of American federal, state, county and municipal employees, workers who make less than $20 an hour, employees whose positions are grant-funded or third-party funded and water services and aviation staff members.

During Thursday’s meeting, city council members also voted to adopt an amendment to protect workers’ pensions from being affected by the furloughs, reports 41 Action News.

In an attempt to minimize the financial strain this will cause for some workers while continuing to provide services, Director of Communications Chris Hernandez said furloughs will likely be spread out.

“In broad outlines, it’s probably going to mean you can only take one furlough day per week,” Hernandez said. “We want to make sure we’re balancing the ability to still provide the services that people need and spread out the pain to employees and their paycheck and make sure you don’t have an entire unit of folks all doing the same tasks who all disappear for a week.”

Final details regarding how furloughs will occur will be provided at next week’s city council meeting.