Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday announced the layoff of more than 130 employees at the state prison system's headquarters.

Brown's office said the layoffs and the elimination of about 266 vacant positions at California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation headquarters would reduce general fund spending by $30 million.

The cuts were first suggested two weeks ago, when Brown released a revised budget plan that included eliminating 5,500 positions statewide. Employees started receiving pink slips over the weekend.

"This is a long overdue action to make CDCR more efficient while cutting costs," Brown, who is seeking a deal in the Legislature to resolve California's remaining $9.6 billion budget deficit, said in a prepared statement Tuesday.

The measure will eliminate 32 executive-level corrections jobs and more than 100 management and supervisory positions, Brown's office said.

More than 1,000 headquarters positions, or about 25 percent, have been eliminated during the past 18 months, reducing staffing levels to about 2005 levels, Brown's office said.

Patrick Whalen, spokesman for the California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment, said the administration told the union late Tuesday afternoon about the layoffs. The move affects some of the union's approximately 3,700 members.

Lawyers will probably have plenty of options to move into similar state jobs elsewhere, Whalen said, because "a lot of departments are understaffed."

But about 80 deputy parole commissioners may need to dust off their résumés because Brown's realignment plan to get the state out of the parole business will eliminate their entire job class.

"We're very concerned that the responsibility is about to be handed to (local government), but the locals won't have the money to do it properly," Whalen said. "And because it's such a specialized job, our people won't have alternatives."

Corrections Secretary Matt Cate said in a prepared statement that the reductions announced Tuesday would create "a leaner organization, clarify functions and responsibilities, delegate decision-making authority and eliminate duplicative functions."

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