Colorado announces furloughs for state workers
DENVER — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced mandatory furloughs of state workers due to pandemic-related budget cuts and warned Tuesday about a third wave of coronavirus outbreaks if the state’s upward trend continues.
The number of days are based on an employee’s annual salary with exemptions for those necessary for the COVID-19 response, assisting Coloradans in finding jobs, and protecting public safety and roads, as well as workers earning $50,000 a year or less.
“The public sector, too, needs to tighten its belts to get through this,” Polis said at a news conference. Workers earning $50,000 to $70,000 will be furloughed for one day, $70,000 to $90,000 for two days, $90,000 to $140,000 for three days; and above $140,000 for four days.
In April, Polis announced nearly $289 million in cuts to the budget for the fiscal year ending June 30 to offset declining revenue. The cuts affected numerous agencies and projects, but they didn’t include layoffs or furloughs of state employees.
Polis also said that Colorado had 654 new positive cases of the coronavirus Tuesday, with the largest number of cases in the state among 18-to-25 year-olds, most from the University of Colorado Boulder.
The state has not reported that many cases since the week of July 27.
About 3.4% of COVID-19 tests came back positive, averaged over three days. That figure remained below the 5% threshold where experts begin to worry the state could miss detecting a significant number of cases, health officials said.
Boulder County accounted for about one in every five newly confirmed cases last week.