By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

While A-1 Plank and Scaffold Mfg. has laid off much of its workforce, it remains open and is shipping and receiving material, company President Dwight Allenbaugh said Monday.

He declined to say much about the situation surrounding the company, located on the west edge of Hays Regional Airport.

"I won't be able to do that at this point," he said when asked for details about what prompted the layoffs. "But I hope to do that very soon."

Allenbaugh denied reports the company had closed.

Instead, he said, they still were shipping and receiving material.

"We have people working," he said.

Allenbaugh said A-1 has had several layoffs, including last week.

"The last one was in the low 20s," he said.

When Mike Michaelis, executive director of the Ellis County Coalition for Economic Development, heard of the layoffs, he said he contacted Allenbaugh directly.

"Officially, I know they had some layoffs," Michaelis said Monday. "They weren't closed, but they had some layoffs."

Word of the layoffs also has reached the rapid response team of Kansas Works, the group that can intervene prior to mass layoffs to provide information to employees losing their jobs.

Program director Deb Scheibler said she was told of the layoffs just before Thanksgiving.

"I have not been able to get in touch with anyone," she said of the officials at A-1 Plank.

Typically, she said, they are best able to provide information about retraining prior to the layoffs taking place.

Once people leave the company, they are more difficult to track down.

As a result, she's uncertain how many people have been laid off.

"I believe we had a few people from there come in the office," she said of A-1 Plank employees who now are looking for jobs or filing unemployment claims.

At its peak, A-1 had more than 200 employees working in three buildings east of Hays. A-1 also has a plant in Paramount, Calif., where the company was based prior to moving to Hays.

While scaffolding has been its core business, it also manufactures a modular panel concrete wall forming construction system that is reusable and reduces the amount of manpower required. The forms are manufactured by Tabla Construction Systems, also located on the three-building A-1 Plank campus.