Schoharie County will furlough as many as 95 employees, likely through July 31, in an effort to get ahead of the economic fallout from COVID-19.
The three-month layoffs will save the county $816,605.
The additional step of not filling 30 vacant positions through the end of 2020 will save an additional $620,000 to $690,000.
But even the total savings—about $1.2 million plus another $400,000 to $450,000 in benefits—will still leave finances in a bad place:
With a funding gap of $2.2 to $2.4 million to be closed by the end of the year.
That’s the dire prediction supervisors heard Friday when they met in a conference call to consider cuts to offset what’s expected to be a $4.2 million loss in local, state, and federal revenues.
The decision was such a difficult one that they took the weekend to consider it, meeting Monday to approve the furloughs and other cost-saving measures, 1,674 to 1,300.
Voting in favor of the seven-point emergency fiscal plan were: Supervisors Bill Federice, Conesville; Richard Lape, Richmondville; Alex Luniewski, Wright; Leo McAllister, Cobleskill; Earlin Rose, Seward; Alan Tavenner, Schoharie; Alicia Terry, Gilboa; and Harold Vroman, Summit.
A motion to pull back the furloughs failed by the same, flipped vote with its supporters Supervisors Don Airey of Blenheim, Peggy Hait of Jefferson, Wes Laraway of Middleburgh, John Leavitt of Carlisle, Sandy Manko of Sharon, Phil Skowfoe of Fulton, Earl Van Wormer of Esperance, and Steve Weinhofer of Broome.
Mr. Airey was one of those speaking against the furloughs Monday, calling on supervisors to “embrace courage” and pointing to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s talk of reopening some of the state by May 15.
But Alicia Terry of Gilboa argued the other side: Despite her longstanding “farmer’s optimism,” she said, it’s going to be a long time before even upstate New York rebounds.

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Friday, County Administrator Steve Wilson walked supervisors through the layoff process and the timetable.
Because of the CARES Act, he said, employees making $58,000 a year won’t be hurt financially and those making $40,000 will actually see more income.
For the county, savings will come because the CARES Act picks up a larger share of unemployment benefits.
“There were no targets,” Mr. Wilson said. “Simply, we went to the Department Heads and said, “Who are the people and the work you can safely do without for three months?’”
In addition to the temporary lay-offs, the emergency fiscal plan includes a “hard” hiring freeze, a moratorium on all uncommitted spending and a review of all elective projects.
It also directs Mr. Wilson to put together a new balanced budget based on August information.
According to Mr. Wilson’s calculations, based on what he’s already seeing, if the county’s revenues for the rest of ’20 are down 15 percent:
• Sales tax revenues will drop $13,600.
• O-Tax revenues will drop $97,750.
• Intra-governmental revenues—for example work the Department of Public Works does on Social Services’ cars--will be down $9,984,514.
• State revenues will be down $15,139,066.
• Federal revenues will be down $9,146,111.
Jim Roemer, the county’s labor attorney, said Friday that of the 50 or so counties his firm represents, all are looking at similar fallout from COVID-19 and most are looking at taking advantage of the CARES Act for the temporary furloughs—which is not to say there won’t be layoffs, he said.
“This is an opportunity for local governments to get ahead of the curve,” he said.
“If you wait until September or October to figure out the real consequences…the likelihood is that there will be very drastic measures.”