Massive Newspaper Layoffs in New Orleans and Alabama

There was an update yesterday to the recent story about the New Orleans Times-Picayune cutting back to three days per week...namely that the axe has now fallen on one-third of the newspaper's staff. Here is the Atlantic Wire with the details:

Despite earlier reports that about half of it journalists would be cut, the dust has settled and the Times-Picayune newspaper has said it has laid off about one-third of its staff--about 201 of its employees.

(snip)

The Gambit's Kevin Allman (via Jim Romenesko) reports that the severance packages cap out at one year, and fired employees will accrue 1.5 weeks of pay for every year of service. "At least three very familiar newsroom names, including award winners, have said they intend to take severance and/or don't expect to be invited to join NOLA Media Group," writes Allman. Romenesko is also reporting that half of the news staff is being let go.

Not to be outdone, newspapers in Alabama are laying of 400 of their own staff members. Here is the Birmingham Business Journal with that sad story:

Three of Alabama’s largest daily newspapers, including the Birmingham News, will lay off about 400 employees as they cut back their printing schedules and increase their focus on digital.

According to al.com, the laid-off workers will have a chance to apply for 100 or more positions at two new companies, Alabama Media Group and Advance Central Services Alabama.

The 100 vacant positions will be posted at al.com later this week.

It's not clear how many employees will be impacted at the Birmingham News or at each specific paper, but a report from The Poynter Institute cited an unnamed source saying 60 percent of the editorial staff at the News would be affected.

Cindy Martin, who will head the new Alabama Media Group, said she’d been in meetings this morning to let employees know if they will be laid off, but couldn’t confirm which employees or the total number impacted.

(snip)

The layoffs are part of a series of changes at the newspapers, which will begin publishing only three days a week instead of daily this fall.

I would gather that three-day-a-week newspaper service will soon be the norm for the industry...and that even that won't be enough to save it from eventual oblivion.


Bonus: Before anyone comments about it, I realize this is the wrong Birmingham. Tough shit, I like this song.

Computer Crash Cripples Jefferson County (Alabama)

So what does a large municipal bankruptcy really mean? Chaos. Here is al.com with the details:

A server that runs Jefferson County's financial software system has crashed and halted financial activity in a number of county departments, officials said Thursday.

Since Tuesday, the hardware problem has slowed or stopped transactions in the finance, treasurer and purchasing departments, preventing vendor payments and deposits and delaying preparation of the fiscal 2011 audit, according to county officials.

The server runs SAP, the accounting software system the county uses to track financial activity.

"The SAP functionality is so diminished that it does not allow us to do the day-to-day financial operations of our county," Commissioner Jimmie Stephens said. "It's the financial backbone of the county. It's the language that we use to communicate with all of our vendors and all of our financial contacts throughout the county. And to have it go mute to where we can't communicate is a tremendous problem."

County Manager Tony Petelos said all of the servers that run the SAP program have outlived their useful life, and of the 16 servers in the Information Technology Department, only one has any life left.

"The rest of them are outdated and they need to be replaced," Petelos said. "When one server crashes it causes the whole system to go down. I've said this over and over again: The county has to reinvest in its infrastructure, and this is only one key example."

Workers were able to restore the server but are looking for a way to load SAP programs and data, Petelos said. "If successful, SAP should be available within 24 hours," he said. "If unsuccessful, a complete rebuild of the system will be required and could take up to five days."

Stephens blamed the problem on staff reductions and decisions to reduce maintenance contracts to save money.

The cash-strapped county laid off hundreds of workers last year to conserve cash until a fix could be found for a shortage of general fund revenue. Wayne Cree, director of information technology, has said his department lost approximately 30 budgeted positions in the past year because of layoffs, retirements, transfers and resignations.

But here is the "money quote," so to speak:

Stephens said contracts countywide have been either terminated or reduced to save money, and the toll is mounting.

"You do away with people and you do away with outside maintenance contracts that take care of that proprietary equipment, and you're left with the inability to operate government," Stephens said.

Consider this an early warning of things to come all across the country.


Bonus: "Alabama...you've got a weight on your shoulders that's breaking your back"

Alabama Closing 13 National Guard Armories

This is a good companion to this morning's post. Here is the Tuscaloosa News with the details:

Alabama’s National Guard plans to close armories across the state, including some in the Black Belt, citing smaller military forces, changing military needs and budget constraints.

The National Guard announced Nov. 1 that it would close 13 armories, many of them aging and substandard. Some were built in the 1950s.

“We’re $12 million behind in maintenance, we have roofs leaking, commodes won’t flush, lights are flickering and they’re dangerous,” Maj. Gen. Perry Smith, Alabama’s adjutant general, said last week.

Smith announced in November that armories in Georgiana, Greenville, Grove Hill, Hartselle, Heflin, Linden, Lineville, Millport, Moulton, Ozark, Thomasville, Union Springs and Wetumpka would be closed.

The state’s military department said last week that it has already closed 11 of them, leaving only two on its list, the Linden and Hartselle armories, still open.

The Fort Hill McManus Boggs armory in Linden is scheduled to close before Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Smith said it’s not just the lack of money that is forcing the armories to close, but also changing recruiting and military needs.

Linden Mayor Mitzi Gates, however, is trying to convince state officials not to close the armory in her town, saying it is still fairly new and is in “great shape.”

She has the support of area legislators in her efforts.

“We’ve had a military presence since the 1950s and it’s part of the culture of our town, of course,” she said. She said the armory, with its 14 or 15 full-time employees, has an economic impact on Linden.

“It was puzzling to me why they would close it,” she said.

Just like at the national level, nobody wants to cut back on military spending because it will result in people losing their jobs, but sooner or later the money simply will not be there to continue to support this form of Military Keynesianism.


Bonus: Bill visits Alabama

United Space Alliance (Florida) Lays Off 10% Of Work Force

It is probably not a very good time to be the nation's "leading space shuttle contractor." Here is Florida Today with the story:

United Space Alliance, NASA’s lead space shuttle contractor, today shaves its work force by 10 percent with its latest round of layoffs, which include 181 employees based at Kennedy Space Center.

In all, 269 employees are leaving company offices in Florida, Texas and Alabama, the majority of them (186) through voluntary layoffs officially called self-nominations.

More than half the departing employees were the last to receive a “critical skills” bonus that was offered as an incentive to help retain those skills through flyout of the shuttle program, which completed its last mission last July. All laid off employees receive a severance package.

After today’s cuts, Houston-based USA expects to have 2,589 employees, including 1,323 at KSC.

Another round of reductions is planned in the fall.

Given that the space shuttle will never fly again, it is kind of baffling that this company is even still in business.


Bonus: Major Tom isn't coming home because he never got off the ground

Alabama State Budget Cuts Delay Forensic Tests for Criminal Investigations

I've posted several previous stories about how state and local government budget cuts are causing cutbacks to law enforcement, meaning fewer cops on the streets in some localities. But here is a new angle on that theme that I had not seen previously. Thanks to teevee shows like CSI, most people are familiar with the forensic science aspect of modern law enforcement and how it it used to successfully prosecute criminals who might have avoided conviction in an earlier era. You couldn't do a DNA match, for example, before DNA tests were even possible.

What people don't stop to consider, however, is that such tests are not cheap to properly perform, and that if there is no longer sufficient funding for them they will cease to be a tool in policeman's kit. Here is the Montgomery Advertiser with a story about just such a thing starting to happen down in Alabama:

The funding crisis in Alaba­ma's General Fund budget is be­ing felt in particular by law en­forcement agencies and district attorney's offices with delays in critical lab work results needed to investigate crimes and bring cases to trial.

This includes tests to de­termine if something found in a car or on a suspect is an illegal substance like cocaine or marijua­na or contains legal ingredients like talcum powder or pencil shavings. Also being delayed are tests to determine how a person died and those that show if ar­rested drivers were under the in­fluence of alcohol or drugs.

State Forensic Sciences Direc­tor Michael Sparks said his agen­cy's funding has been cut 33 per­cent in the past three years and there are 27 fewer employees than in 2009.

He said the funding shortfall is causing backlogs, particularly in drug tests and on toxicology tests that determine cause of death.

The agency has long suffered from budget shortfalls, but Sparks said they had $14 million to spend three years ago and the agency had eliminated most back­logs. Then the recession hit and in the past three years, Sparks has watched the agency's budget drop almost $5 million a year. Labs have been closed and some key services have been dropped, such as providing transporta­tion to ship bodies to labora­tories.

"We have to investigate everything that is brought to us," Sparks said. "If someone is found dead, they want to know what happened."

Blount County District At­torney Pamela Casey said quick results on a toxicology test can mean whether a case is successfully prose­cuted.

"I can't prosecute cases until I have a toxicology re­port in my hands," Casey said.

She said the delays are causing grand jury proceed­ings to be delayed, slowing down how long it takes for indictments to be brought against suspects.

Casey said she had a drawer in her office in Oneonta that contains about 700 cases that need to go be­fore a grand jury.

She said in many of those cases the laboratory work has not been completed.

She said the state's district attorneys have already been told more budget cuts are coming in the session of the Legislature that begins in February.

Of course, law enforcement was already dealing with the so-called "CSI Effect," as explained by Wikipedia:

The CSI effect, also known as the CSI syndrome and the CSI infection, is any of several ways in which the exaggerated portrayal of forensic science on crime television shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation influences public perception. The term most often refers to the belief that jurors have come to demand more forensic evidence in criminal trials, thereby raising the effective standard of proof for prosecutors. While this belief is widely held among American legal professionals, some studies have suggested that crime shows are unlikely to cause such an effect, although frequent CSI viewers may place a lower value on circumstantial evidence. As technology improves and becomes more prevalent throughout society, people may also develop higher expectations for the capabilities of forensic technology.

There are several other manifestations of the CSI effect. Greater public awareness of forensic science has also increased the demand for forensic evidence in police investigations, boosting workloads for crime laboratories.

Increased demand has run smack dab into budgetary realities. So in other words, you could say that we are now reaching the point of Peak Criminal Forensics.

Eating Less Chicken Due to the Recession?

Just in time for Thanksgiving. At first, this report about layoffs at some chicken processing plants down in Alabama looked pretty routine:

More than 360 employees at two Wayne Farms facilities in Morgan County may be laid off around Christmastime, company officials said.

Wayne plans to eliminate as many as 5 of the 6 lines at the Further Processing East plant at 110 Plugs Drive in Decatur., Additional layoffs will come from the Further Processing West plant next door.

But then there was this little tidbit:

The plants make cooked and prepared chicken products, sold to restaurants and grocery stores. Officials say there's a reduced demand for chicken, leading to the cuts.

A "reduced demand for chicken?" Sure make you wonder doesn't it. Maybe it struck a chord with me because my own father had a lifelong aversion to chicken. He developed his distaste for poultry growing up as a child in the latter half of the Great Depression when the only meat the family could afford was chicken. My dad ate steaks his whole adult life, usually ones he grilled himself. As kids, my brothers and I found our dad's aversion to chicken to be amusing, and to taunt him sometimes we'd answer "Kentucky Fried Chicken!" when he would ask us where we wanted to go eat.

The only logical reason demand for such a basic meat staple could be dropping is that people are getting too poor to afford it anymore. Because it sure isn't due to them suddenly all being able to afford to run out and buy steak.