BOSTON — The Massachusetts Department of Revenue, tasked with collecting state taxes, is losing 289 employees, or 15 percent of its total workforce, as part of a state budget-saving measure.
Auditors and tax examiners are among those taking an early retirement incentive.
The Department of Revenue plans to publish information later this week on how it will deal with the changes.
Gov. Charlie Baker proposed, and the Legislature approved, an early retirement incentive that was meant to save the state money by trimming the state workforce. Now that those workers have retired, effective June 30, 2,478 public employees have left state service, according to Massachusetts Comptroller Thomas Shack.
As expected, some agencies were harder hit than others – including the Department of Revenue, the Department of Transportation, the department that oversees welfare, the Department of Environmental Protection and several Health and Human Service agencies. Some of these jobs could be backfilled, as the Baker administration has the authority to use up to 20 percent of the savings to hire new people into the vacant positions.
Brendan Moss, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Administration and Finance, said state government will be able to deal with the losses. "We are continuing to work closely with all state agencies affected to ensure it will have minimal impact on state services," Moss said.
Baker pointed out that he had expected 4,500 people to retire. "We had planned for a larger number of people to leave state service than actually did, and I actually feel at this point that we're in reasonably good shape," Baker said Monday.
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