Budget Hole Causes State Jobs To Be Cut

News 9 has reported that certain agencies were offering buyouts and early retirement to some of their employees. The data that News 9's Alex Cameron has gathered does not include any jobs lost through incentives like those.

This is just positions that have been cut.

According to the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, there were 34,569 state workers at the beginning of 2016.

Six months later, at the end of June, the number was 33,960; a loss of 609 jobs.

News 9 did some digging and discovered that DHS -- the Department of Human Services -- took, by far, the biggest hit during that time, losing 539 employees, almost 8 percent of its workforce.

The Department of Corrections also lost big; 144 fewer employees now than at the start of the year, according to OMES.

The next three, ranked by number of employees lost, are the District Attorney's Council with 20, the Department of Agriculture with 11, and the Employment Security Commission with eight.

Add up those five and you have a loss of 722 jobs, well above the 609 total mentioned earlier, but that's because some agencies actually added positions during this time, so 609 is the net loss.

And with most agencies seeing their budgets cut further in the fiscal year that just started this month, expect that number to go up.