Page 4 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • June 9, 2010 Ridgewood Village mails out more Rice letters to employees The Ridgewood municipal government recently mailed 11 Rice letters to employees who were informed Helpful Hints Helpful Hints from ome “Before transplanting a potted plant into the ground, water it well. This will help reduce stress to the plant and also helps the soil stick around the roots.” Pat Says... they might be facing layoffs. This second mailing followed the first round of 34 letters. Details as to which departments’ workers had received letters in the most recent mailing were not released, but PBA union representative Mark Butler said four police officers had recently received the letters. No Rice letters went to police officers in the first mailing, according to most sources. Rice letters, Village Clerk Heather Mailander explained last week, are not formal notices of termination or layoff, but rather are notifications that such actions might be pending. The employees who receive Rice letters have the option to request either a public or a private hearing before the Ridgewood Village Council if they wish to remain employed and feel that they can justify their retention. Some of the people who received the letters in the first mailing were those nearing retirement, and various sources estimate that only about half of those who were laid off in the first round were terminated in early or mid-career. Ridgewood has approximately 250 full-time paid employees on the village staff. Employees have appeared at several council meetings to request that the possible layoffs be reconsidered, while residents who are not employees have argued that the taxes in Ridgewood have led to a demographic situation in which only younger couples with children can afford to remain in Ridgewood. Council urged to spare patrolmen (continued from page 3) with many children, further burdening the schools and making more expansion necessary with further tax impact on the entire town, including the older people who had hoped to remain in Ridgewood. “You’re going to get involved in a vicious cycle,” Kuiper warned. After the 2010-11 school budget was defeated by just over 100 votes at the polls in April, the Ridgewood Council cut the transportation item in that budget by $100,000 and left the rest of the school’s spending plan intact. Two years ago, former Village Manager James Ten Hoeve, who had previously served as Ridgewood’s chief financial officer, suggested that all full-time village employees take a one-day furlough each month without pay, a move he said could have saved most staff jobs. 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