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CSEA: Stratton email notes cut in service
Thruway Authority eliminates 231 jobs
BY DAVID LOMBARDO Gazette Reporter

    An email about tight resources from the state Canal Corporation’s director is being highlighted by members of the Civil Service Employees Association as evidence that this week’s layoffs mean scaledback services.
    The state Thruway Authority eliminated 231 positions on Wednesday, with about 42 of the spots in the Canal Corporation, a division of the authority. A total of 217 employees were laid off as the result of the job eliminations.
    Plans to cut the jobs were announced earlier in the year and were the product of fiscal challenges in the Thruway Authority, according to spokesman Dan Weiller.
    “Positions throughout the system were identified for elimination after a careful review of staffing and operational needs in every area of the state, and we will ensure that we maintain the same level of safety and reliability our customers have come to expect,” Weiller said. “We regret the loss of valued employees and express our thanks for their years of dedicated service.”
    Weiller did not say where the cuts would be, but has previously noted that jobs across the state and in 60 different civil service titles are included in the cuts.
    Canal Corp. Director Brian Stratton wrote in an email to his employees on Thursday, which was given to The Daily Gazette by CSEA, that they’re heading into possibly the most “challenging chapter” of the history of the canal system because of the cuts.
    Stratton has previously said that the cuts were designed to limit the impact on services provided. In his email he said the Canal Corp. will have to switch to a reduced operating schedule that was last employed in 1991.
    “Even with this revised schedule, our resources will be strained, and our people challenged, like never before,” Stratton wrote.
    “I am aware of the state of morale, and the precarious state of our labor force currently,” he added, asking his employees to “do more with less.”
    In response to this email, CSEA President Danny Donohue said Stratton had done a drastic reversal on his previous position regarding the impact of the cuts.
    He noted that the layoffs mean the Oswego Canal will not have any lock operators. .....................>>>>.........................>>>>..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00904&AppName=1

These cuts all seem to target the employees who provide a service to the taxpayers. The Stratton types are all keeping their highly extraneous positions.

Dissolve the thruway authority and raze the toll booths. Something that was supposed/should have been done decades ago.

Quoted from RotterdamResident

Dissolve the thruway authority and raze the toll booths. Something that was supposed/should have been done decades ago.

Here Here! We've been lied to for decades.
Hey whatever happened to that 70 million dollars they "misplaced"?

although he was right in the water going up and the water going down...it seems the water is staying down.....