Nearly 6 percent of Oklahoma Department of Human Services’ staff could leave their jobs this week.
DHS has offered voluntary buyouts to 413 of its more than 7,100 employees. Their packages include one week of pay per year of service, limited to $10,000, 18 months of employee insurance premiums and a payout of accrued time off.
Agency spokeswoman Sheree Powell said the problem is bigger than midyear budget cuts triggered by two state revenue failures.
"It's a move to try to make DHS leaner and more efficient going into the next fiscal year, because the next fiscal year is going to be tougher than the one we're in right now," Powell said.
DHS is looking at a $30 to $40 million shortfall for next year.
"It is a sizable amount of employees, and it will probably only save us about $12 million," Powell said.
The agency is trying to limit how many employees like social workers walk away.
"We did get a lot of people who wanted a voluntary buyout who were frontline workers," Powell said. "We simply could not offer them a buyout because it wasn't a financial benefit to the agency to have frontline workforce leave."
Powell said depending on how many employees take buyouts, DHS staffing could fall to an all-time low.
