Supes rescind building inspector layoff

Supervisors agreed to rescind a layoff notice for a half-time building inspector II position in a 4-0 vote, with Supervisor Margie Barrios not present Wednesday morning.
Supervisor Anthony Botelho asked for the item to be pulled from the consent agenda for discussion.
“We rescinded public safety layoffs,” he said. “Now we are rescinding this one. I think every employee is valuable. … But I thought if we are going to maintain this position we should have that person help with code enforcement and bring in revenue.”
Gary Armstrong, director of the planning department, said the position already fills in with code enforcement. He said the position had to be rescinded because he had misunderstood the layoff policy from the human resources department.
“We are keeping the position, but as a result, four other employees will go to 80 percent to meet our numbers,” Armstrong said.
Botelho said the only way he would support keeping the position is if there was an offset to the expense, which is estimated to be $45,457 annually for salary and benefits.
“It may be inevitable, but we need some sort of revenue generated,” he said.
He said he would be asking departments during the budget hearing process, set to start July 23, if the positions they want to keep can generate revenue.
Barrios did not attend the meeting because she was in Sacramento on county business.