York County faces "very painful" cuts because of budget problems caused by a new jail consolidation law, the county manager said Friday after an initial meeting with his department heads to discuss ways to slice nearly $1 million in spending.

Richard Brown said he and other county officials are looking to find any sources of revenue they can think of to try to stave off what could be 20 to 40 layoffs – out of a non-jail workforce of about 80 – because of financial problems created by the consolidation law.

"We're trying to pick the nickels out of the cracks here," Brown said. "We're looking to save each job that we possibly can."

County commissioners this week declared a fiscal emergency after determining that a new state jail consolidation law will not allow the county to continue to use jail boarding fees to offset part of its cost of running the jail.

The new law, which will take effect later this summer, requires the county to spend $8.6 million on jail operations, regardless of how much it takes in for holding prisoners from other counties or the state.

The county had anticipated earning $932,000 in boarding fees in the coming year and planned on using that money as part of the $8.6 million it has to pay on jail operations. But the law doesn't allow that – boarding fees have to be used to cover direct costs related to the extra prisoners or put into a capital expense fund.

The $8.6 million, therefore, needs to come from county taxpayers only. That will require the county to cut nearly $1 million in spending by the end of the year, Brown said, and the cuts have to come from non-jail parts of the budget.

Brown noted that the county pays nearly $2 million a year in interest and principal on the bonds that were used to pay for building the jail, but under the law, that's not considered an expense that can be counted toward the $8.6 million.

Brown said layoffs likely will affect all services the county provides, even including emergency management operations.

"All of those things are impacted and significantly impacted," he said. "You can't take 20 to 30 percent off a budget and not have it impact people. You've got all these perfect-storm things working against you."

Brown said he's asked the county's major union to consider a 30-hour workweek to cut costs, but the head of that union's local said the county hasn't provided enough information for leaders to make a recommendation to their members.

"We haven't really been able to respond ... at this point," said Rachel Sherman, president of Maine State Employees Association Local 1297, which represents clerical and custodial workers.

Sherman said the county has provided a three-page budget summary, but no information on the payroll that would help the union determine what savings would be realized with a shorter workweek.

Staff Writer Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at:

emurphy@pressherald.com