Share this article! Furloughs create overtime A move to save Oregon $40.8 million over two years with mandatory furlough days is actually costing some state agencies more due to increased overtime. Gov. Ted Kulongoski ordered unpaid furlough days for 26,500 state workers to help fix the 2009-11 budget hole. State payroll data provided to The … Read more
Furloughs create overtime
A move to save Oregon $40.8 million over two years with mandatory furlough days is actually costing some state agencies more due to increased overtime.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski ordered unpaid furlough days for 26,500 state workers to help fix the 2009-11 budget hole.
State payroll data provided to The Oregonian shows the departments of Corrections and Human Services saw overtime costs spike in the final three months of last year. Officials say furloughs are difficult to manage at prisons, the state hospital and other round-the-clock operations because they require other staff to work extra hours to cover all the shifts…
“The governor was really trying to avoid layoffs,” Kulongoski spokeswoman Anna Richter Taylor said. “Furloughs, along with pay freezes and no cost-of-living increases was a way to generate savings.”
Read the full story at OregonLive.com.
Mall splits community
The developer of The Rivers project in Oregon City says a division in city council is the reason the project has stalled.
And with community disapproval also being cited as a factor, some question if the mall project had much support to begin with.
Mayor Alice Norris said she thinks a majority of people liked the idea and she hopes it will come back after the November election. She said since its suspension she’s received a “deluge” of responses upset about the suspension.
But if a council division did cause the project’s halt, some believe the suspension signifies the success of an election held more than a year ago.
Read the full story at the Portland Tribune.
Epic Air fate up in the air
Seven former customers haven’t given up on bidding for Bend-based Epic Air, which closed last summer.
The seven were in the middle of assembling kit-built planes when the company closed. They are now competing against a Chinese corporation that placed an “unfair” winning bid of $4.3 million in the bankruptcy auction.
Tuesday in Portland, a bankruptcy judge blasted the business projections filed by the seven’s company, LT Builders, with words such as pathetic, useless, incompetent, unacceptable, garbage and fiction.
Yet still they kept coming. Ringleader Daryl Ingalsbe, an ex-military man who runs an Omaha-based manufacturing company, put it this way from the witness stand: “It’s like being in a war together. I’m not going to let my friends down.”
Read the full story at OregonLive.com.
Farm business withers
From dairies to grass-seed growers, Oregon farmers and ranchers reported widespread declines in 2009.
Field crops, poultry, vegetables and truck crops were among the few sectors that managed to avoid the downward trend.
Key sectors like greenhouse and nursery products, hay, grass seed, wheat and small fruits and berries were all down in 2009, according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
Small fruits and berries posted one of the biggest losses, plunging 41.4% to $99.8 million on lower prices, particularly for cranberries and blueberries. Close behind was grass and legume seeds, shrinking 37.2% to $319.7 million. Dairy products declined 19.2% to $403.6 million.
Read the full story at the Statesman Journal.
New frontier for Verizon
The Oregon Public Utility Commission approved the sale of Verizon’s phone, internet and cable television operations in Oregon to Frontier Communications.
The commission approved the sale to Frontier with 57 conditions to protect customers.
Verizon divested its interest in cable television, broadband and landline telephone services in a sale to Frontier in late 2009, to focus solely on its wireless phone enterprises.
The city councils of Gresham, Fairview, Troutdale and Wood Village all voted in early January to accept the franchise transfer from Verizon to Connecticut-based Frontier Communications Corp.
Read the full story at the Portland Tribune.
