FITCHBURG, Wis. -- The city of Fitchburg is trying to fill a $300,000 budget hole and city leaders are hoping week-long furloughs will cover half of the deficit.

"As of March, we realized that some of the revenues that we had budgeted for were not going to occur as we had thought they would, particularly in the areas of building permits and interest income," said Tony Roach, city of Fitchburg administrator,

The city now will go to each of the five unions that represent its city workers in hope that they'll agree to the furlough plan. If an agreement is not reached, Roach said, layoffs could be a possibility.

"I suppose (layoffs are) a possibility. It's always a concern that we make sure that we have good relations with our labor union and we need to sit down and share -- open up the books and show them why we're doing this. And we hope that we'll be able to work out a solution together," Roach said.

Fitchburg is the first Dane County community to ask its employees to take unpaid time off.

City employees were told about the proposal last week.

It includes every full-time city employee -- even employees of the police and fire departments.

"Those are 24-hour operations, as you know, so we need to make sure that we have proper coverage," said Roach.

A union representative said she can't comment on the situation. She said she believes the move and announcement are very premature considering the union didn't even get notice that furloughs were a possibility.