Cheyenne mayor Rick Kaysen (left) presented his plan to reduce a 2.5 million dollar city budget shortfall to the city council last night.  In the mayor’s plan, all non-uniform city employees and police officers will take one furlough day a month.  Kaysen says furloughing all city employees one day a month is the only way he sees to keep from having to layoff some all together…(Click here for comment from Rick Kaysen)

The furloughs would affect 519 city employees who would lose one day a month in pay and related benefits.  City firefighters are exempt from the furloughs but Kaysen says he and the local firefighters union will talk about other cost cutting measures within the department.

The majority of the mayor’s plan is reducing expenses such as office materials and travel, particularly gas purchases for all city departments and agencies.  Cheyenne city councilman Jim Brown says the budget crisis currently facing the city is the real deal.  He also says the measures presented by mayor Kaysen are a good first step, but he says the worst may still be ahead of us…(Click here for comment from Jim Brown)

Kaysen says the city does have emergency funding in place to keep city snowplows working through the winter.   The city council is expected to vote on the mayor’s budget reduction plan when it meets January 25th.