Stephen Sloane thought he knew what he was getting into when he left Lancaster to take a job in the Centre County district attorney's office.

Sloane said he was asked to make a two-year commitment when he was hired as an assistant district attorney in May, and his wife went to great lengths to get a job transfer so they could move to this part of the state.

That was then.

Today, about six months later, Sloane is being laid off.

Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar said yesterday that his office will lose Sloane and its narcotics investigator, Kevin Barr, due to the county's revenue shortfall.

The Centre County Board of Commissioners will officially announce which county employees will be laid off at today's meeting. But Gricar said he already has discussed the layoffs with commissioners.

Board Chairwoman Vicki Wedler could not be reached for comment yesterday. A spokeswoman said Wedler would not discuss the layoffs before today's meeting.

The layoffs will hurt county law enforcement, Gricar said.

In the past, Gricar said he needed a sixth assistant district attorney on his staff. Cutting the staff from five to four assistants will mean an extra burden on the other assistants and less time spent on each case, he said.

The last time the district attorney's office had only four assistants was in 1986, when the office prosecuted about 1,100 cases, Gricar said. Last year the office's five assistants prosecuted about 2,100 cases, he added.

If losing an assistant district attorney is bad, Gricar said losing the drug detective is even worse.

"He is an expert in drug investigations and electronic surveillance," Gricar said.

Barr could not be reached for comment last night.

Gricar said he tried to persuade the commissioners to cut only one position -- preferably the assistant district attorney as no one else can do the detective's job.

Sloane said he is distraught about being laid off.

"Mine is a textbook example of how devastating this can be," Sloane said. "I'm very, very upset."

Sloane said he wouldn't have moved to Centre County if he had not thought he had a long-term commitment, adding that his wife just had a baby and they were thinking about buying a house.

"Thank God I didn't," he said.

There are no job openings for lawyers in Centre County now, Sloane said, adding that he may have to live apart from his wife and daughter while he works elsewhere to help support them.

Sloane, who received his undergraduate degree in administration of justice from the University in 1985, said he is puzzled about why the commissioners approved his hiring when they knew as early as February they had a monetary deficit.