Managers Stay, Workerbees Go

I really need to stop checking my Google news alerts, as this story from suburban New York City was particularly depressing:

Nurses, office cleaners, typists, psychiatrists, clerks and hospital laundry positions are among the jobs that would be eliminated under County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef's proposed 2012 county budget.

Among other cuts, Vanderhoef's plan axes 544 filled jobs and defunds the Summit Park Hospital and Nursing Care Center. It also imposes a $160 surcharge on top of next year's county property tax bill, which would increase by 2 percent, or about $12 to about $612.

He submitted his budget Monday to the Rockland County Legislature, which has scheduled a public hearing on the plan for Nov. 15. The board must adopt a budget by Dec. 7. If it doesn't, the proposal submitted by Vanderhoef would become the de facto budget.

The list of potential job cuts in 2012 is long, taking up 22 single-spaced pages in the proposed budget and involving departments ranging from the county Veterans' Services Agency and Youth Bureau to the Human Rights Commission and the Division of Environmental Resources, which oversees county parks.

The vast majority of cuts appear to exclude management positions.

The irony is so thick, you couldn't cut it with a chainsaw:

Hardest hit in the first round would be the county Department of Mental Health, which would lose 16 positions

Because anyone who still retains even a tiny little strand of their sanity ought to be able to see that any plan that cuts workers and keeps managers, especially at taxpayer expense, is bat shit crazy.