CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia American Water should explain any future staffing reductions below 288 employees, the state Public Service Commission ruled Thursday.

The PSC also ordered that the water company should ensure that future staffing reductions will not downgrade service quality to customers and that the company should not eliminate positions with without good cause or as an alternate way of accomplishing the layoffs it originally proposed.

The ruling was a modification of an earlier ruling in which the PSC ordered the water company keep 10 of the 31 employees it had planned to lay off.

"The water company was trying to portray the ruling as being far more strenuous than what it actually ruled," said Byron Harris, head of the PSC's Consumer Advocate Division said. "The commission ruled that they had to maintain 289 positions - not people, but positions. You can have temporary vacancies for any reason."

The commission's ruling was to make sure the water company did not allow those temporary vacancies to become layoffs, he said.

The PSC also ruled Thursday that the water company can proceed with a plan to terminate an employee in the Webster Springs District. The PSC had in October said it could terminate that employee, bringing the number of employees the utility must keep to 288, Harris said.

Water company officials originally had tried to lay off 31 workers last year after the PSC denied the company a 13 percent rate increase, giving only a 4.4 percent increase. The Utility Workers Union of America and Laborers International Union asked the commission to block the water company's job cuts.

Reach Lori Kersey at lori.ker...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1240.