New Brunswick Announces Furloughs Of Some City Workers

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — New Brunswick is now only the latest New Jersey town to announce it will have to furlough workers due to a drop in revenue from the coronavirus lockdown. Toms River announced earlier this week it will be furloughing up to 60 municipal employees.

Neighboring towns such as Woodbridge, Middletown and South Brunswick said, as of Friday, they do not anticipate having to furlough any town workers.

New Brunswick Mayor Jim Cahill announced Friday the city will be doing temporary furloughs in the following departments:

• Youth Services
• Recreation
• Senior Resource Center
• New Brunswick Free Public Library

All of these divisions of city government had programs discontinued or facilities closed due to coronavirus. The city did not give a total number of how many workers will be furloughed.

These furloughs affect hourly, part-time and full-time workers. New Brunswick said they had to do the furloughs "in preparation for an anticipated significant drop in revenue resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak."

Furlough means city employees do not lose their jobs, but will be unpaid for an unknown period of time. The furloughs were not voluntary, and those New Brunswick workers who were chosen were notified by mail this week with letters from Mayor Cahill and City Administrator Daniel Torrisi.

Furloughed workers will still get to keep their health insurance and retain seniority with the city. Mayor Cahill also said New Brunswick timed this so furloughed workers could take advantage of recent changes to unemployment insurance laws.

“It just makes sense to save money now while these services are not being provided so we will have the funds to fill these positions when things get back up and running,” said Mayor Cahill. “By taking this action now, our goal is to avoid any permanent loss of employment.”

Any city employee who was able to continue to do their job from home was able to remain on the payroll without being furloughed.