About 100 Fort Bliss civilian jobs to be cut

Fort Bliss is bracing for more civilian job cuts.

Nearly 100 civilian employees are expected to lose their positions by early next year. Those affected are likely to be notified sometime in the next month and a half.

According to a statement we received from fort bliss today, the garrison command was notified of the reduction in force about two weeks ago.

The cuts will help the post reach its fiscal year 2015-16 authorization levels. The number of people let go will be fewer than the 90 positions expected to be cut, according to Fort Bliss, due to retirements, reassignments and positions that are already vacant.

Town Hall meetings were held with all employees between September 3 and 5.

According to Garrison Command, notices to impacted employees will go out in early November and by January 10 they must be off the payroll.

The statement from Fort Bliss went on to say: “The Garrison Command regrets that any position must be abolished, and therefore we have stated clearly that a top priority of ours throughout this process is to mitigate the number of impact positions where possible, and to provide total support to those employees who may be impacted at the end of the process. We expect that many changes will take place between now and the planned effective date of January 15.”

Another source told ABC-7 the jobs most likely to be cut are security guards, police, pass office employees and human resource assistants. Fort Bliss officials indicated that only a small number of the “over-hired” positions to be cut are above the grade of GS-6. The government’s civilian pay scale runs from GS-1 through 15.

Lower grade employees have a greater opportunity, Fort Bliss officials said, of being placed into other vacant positions.