Back to the job hunt

Well, I have some unexpected and unfortunate news. I'm in the market for a new job again. They made a big announcement at work this week that the funding for my program is being cut by about 60% starting in July. Consequently there will be significant personnel cutbacks. I must say that working for the government during a situation like this certainly has its advantages and disadvantages. On the on hand, the politics of the whole thing are a bit frustrating. My program is funded mostly through tobacco tax revenues which are down by about 20% this year. That either means less people are smoking, or they are just buying their cigarettes on the reservations or in Mexico tax-free, we don't really know, but either way, although a 20% decrease in funding would certainly warrant some budget changes, that alone wouldn't have been too devastating, however, the state of arizona decided that instead of outsourcing all the prevention, cessation, and marketing services to each county, they were instead going to run a huge centralized marketing campaign and only offer cessation services through a telephone quitline. The bad news is they've contracted for these services with independent companies, and consequently removed an additional 5 million from the budget allocated to the county projects like the one I work for. The other unfortunate thing is that the few (they haven't told us how many yet) positions that will remain will not be open for a competitive application process, but instead will be awarded to those employees who score the highest on a matrix. ie. those with the most longevity, highest education level, not necessarily those who might be the best one for the job. Another unfortunate drawback to working for the government rather than private industry.
But on the flip side, we do get 3 1/2 months notice instead being sent packing today, so we'll have plenty of time to look for something new, and we don't have to keep our job hunt secret, everyone in the office knows, and our managers are of course very supportive and willing to let us go to interviews, give good recommendations etc. Ironically enough, the tobacco program in Maricopa county has been an award winning program for about 10 years and has long been considered the "standard for public health" as the director put the other day. I'm really not terribly worried about finding another job, just sad that this one ended so soon since I really enjoy it and looked forward to staying with it for a while longer at least. Oh well c'est la vie!