Man Sentenced for Helping Illegal Immigrants

A 37-year-old Duluth man has been sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of using his employment agency to help illegal immigrants get jobs at Chinese restaurants.

A federal judge on Monday sentenced Liang Yang on charges of conspiring to harbor illegal immigrants. Three years supervised release will follow his prison term.

Authorities indicted Yang and 10 other employment agency operators on April 15, 2008. Only Yang went to trial. The others pleaded guilty to similar charges and have either been sentenced or are awaiting sentencing.

Evidence presented at trial showed the group of employment agencies was a first stop for illegal Latino workers. Prosecutors said Yang served as a broker between the immigrants and the restaurants.

(Associated Press)

Clayton Schools Re-hire Some Teachers

Clayton County has re-hired 100 of 400 teachers who were told they would not have jobs in the next school year. Earlier this month, former superintendent John Thompson laid-off teachers amid budget cuts for the district. Only days later, he was fired and replaced by interim superintendent Valya Lee. She appointed a committee which found dozens of special education teachers were let-go without a performance review. Clayton officials say in addition to the 100 teachers brought back, some of the other 300 could be re-hired based on vacancies. The district south of Atlanta employs roughly 4,000 teachers.

DHR furloughing employees as part of budget cuts

Governor Perdue has asked all state agencies to show they're cutting their 2009 - 2010 budgets between six and ten percent.

The Department of Human Resources is one of the agencies slashing costs, in order to meet a mid-September deadline.

DHR is the largest state agency, employing 19,000 people. It's ordering employees to take a one-day furlough a month, in order to save between $92 million and $150 million dollars.

DHR officials say that,

"All employees earning $35,569 or more (pay grade 15 and above), including all leadership and the DHR Commissioner, will take one furlough day each month."

Exemptions from the furloughs include:

"Child welfare and adult protective services caseworkers [DFACS] and their direct supervisors, all direct-care staff at state hospitals and employees earning less than $35,569 (pay grade 14 and below)."

DHR says they're tightening their belt in other ways, as well, including cutting:

"non-essential travel for state business, suspending all vehicle purchases until further notice, suspending non-critical equipment and supplies purchases for the next 90 days and suspending non-critical hiring unless approved by DHR Commissioner, SPA and OPB."

The new policy goes into effect on September 16th.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the state economic crisis.