PHOENIX – The Arizona Department of Transportation will lay off 115 workers before the end of 2009, according to department officials.
The department notified 90 workers this week that they will be laid off and 25 more are left to be notified before the New Year.
ADOT was forced to make the series of lay offs to combat a project $100 million shortfall due to largely to a loss in revenue for the department and an overall lack of funds from the state budget.
The workers being laid off by the department are mostly from the customer service division of the Department of Motor Vehicles, according to an ADOT press release.
The same workers reduced the overall wait time experienced by four million customers in MVD offices in 2009 to just about a 23 minute average.
The layoffs will reportedly save the department $6 million annually.
"At a time when the people of Arizona are demanding better and faster service, and in an economy that desperately needs to retain jobs, this was a difficult decision like all of our budget reductions," said ADOT Director John Halikowski in the press release. "My thoughts and prayers are with the employees and families impacted by this event."
These most recent layoffs bring the total deficit amount of ADOT staff to about 480 workers, according to officials.
ADOT is still reportedly under a hiring freeze that was implemented in 2008.
In order to makeup these layoffs, ADOT has made several new do-it-yourself transactions available on their website for valley residents to use and have outsourced to 140 third-party offices to carry out department transactions.
For more information about affected offices or the impact of the 2010 budget on ADOT, visit their
website.
For more information about third-party offices visit the DMV third-party
website or for online ADOT transactions, visit the Service Arizona
website.
