Gary Errthum couldn't help but note the unfortunate timing.
On Wednesday, the Columbia County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to authorize a $200,000 loan that would result in the creation of 20 new jobs at E.K. Machines Inc., the Fall River manufacturing company that Errthum owns.
On Thursday, one of the customers of E.K. Machines announced a cutback in its operations.
Officials at E.K. Machines then announced layoffs Thursday and Friday of about seven part-time employees who were in training. Errthum said the layoffs are temporary, but it's impossible to know for sure how long they will last.
According to the rules of the county's revolving loan program, companies must either promise to create jobs or to retain jobs to qualify for the loans, said County Comptroller Lois Schepp.
But John Tramburg of Fall River, chairman of the County Board's finance committee, said Monday that the layoffs do not disqualify E.K. Machines from receiving the loan, which is expected to be finalized this week.
"I'm well satisfied with the fact that the company is going to live up to its obligations," Tramburg said.
Columbia County's revolving loan fund offers loans at below-market interest rates to qualifying companies. According to Schepp, E.K. Machines qualified for the loan by agreeing to add new jobs.
The loan money was to be used for the purchase of a new crane that would allow the company to expand its product line. Errthum told the supervisors that he also had $400,000 in financing from other sources for the crane, which he said he already possesses.
Tramburg said he was concerned, at first, about the news of the layoffs.
However, he said he had always understood that the 20 new jobs likely would become a reality not immediately, but when the crane is ready to begin operation.
"When you get it all up, it'll take maybe two or three years to get it going," Tramburg said.
Errthum said there were no plans for layoffs at the time he began negotiating for the revolving loan.
In fact, he said, E.K. Machines - which makes parts that other factories incorporate into their products - had asked the company to step up production by 20 to 30 percent in its agricultural division.
An employee who was one of those laid off said Friday that there had been indications of a slowdown in production in recent weeks, and the layoffs came as no surprise - though the news of the addition of jobs was a surprise.
That might have been because people got the impression that the 20 jobs would be added immediately, Errthum said.
He said he believes the expansion will happen in the two or three years that he originally projected, even though the economy has made the manufacturing industry as volatile as he's ever seen it. Even the 1980s farm crisis, he said, did not create the kind of uncertainty that the current economy now is fostering.
"I've been in this business for 38 years, and I have never seen developments like this," Errthum said.
E.K. ships parts to seven different plants that manufacture farm equipment such as combines, tractors and haying equipment.
Among the companies that buy parts made by E.K. Machines are Case-New Holland and AGCO, an agricultural equipment manufacturer that makes farm implements under several brand names, including Challenger, Hesston and Massey-Ferguson.
Whether there will be further layoffs in the near future, Errthum said, remains to be seen.
"I'd be lying if I said yes, and I'd be lying if I said no," he said. "We have to look day by day and week by week."
Tramburg said E.K. Machines, which also received a loan from the county's revolving fund in 1990, has proven its reliability over the years.
"The company's track record has been 100 percent," Tramburg said. "Everything Mr. Errthum has ever said he was going to do, he's done."