Montgomery's city employees required to take furlough day before Jan. 31

MONTGOMERY, Al.
Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange said today that all city employees will have to take a furlough day sometime before Jan. 31.
Strange referred to the furlough days, which will save the city around $450,000, as “flexible furloughs” that can be taken by individual employees over the next three months, depending on their personal finances and the needs of their individual departments. The eight-hour day also can also be taken in four-hour increments as employees and managers see fit.
The furlough day is one of three calculated into the city’s 2012 budget that will knock off a total of about $1.5 million for the city’s budget.
The possibility and timing of the other two furlough days will be discussed by city officials once the revenue numbers from the first six months of FY 2012 are in, sometime during March.
“This is a difficult decision not made lightly. Given the recent slowing growth in our revenues, we decided to use at least one of the three furlough days budgeted over the next three months,” Strange said in a Wednesday memo to the city’s 2,700  employees on Wednesday.
In sync with Gov. Robert Bentley’s decision to give state employees the day before Thanksgiving and the day before Christmas, the city will also grant the two additional days off to city employees.