City officials on Friday continued the difficult process of laying off 441 employees to help make up for a $140 million shortfall.

The layoffs have come in a series of meetings, which were closed to reporters, with members of various city departments.

Several people believed to be involved in one of those meetings Friday morning at City Hall East either declined comment or avoided reporters as they left.

Other city employees, meanwhile, anxiously waited to hear whether they would be sent on their way with two weeks' pay.

Thjuanda Denham, 35, has been through this before.

A truck driver with the city's Solid Waste Services department, Denham got laid off in June 1996. At the time, she had a daughter, who was seriously ill with heart and kidney disease, she said. Her daughter has since died.

"I was devastated because I needed my benefits for her," Denham said. "I cried a whole lot."

Two weeks later, Denham was hired back.

Now Denham is back in the same position, waiting to hear whether she will again lose her job. She didn't get the word Friday, so she expects to know by next week. "It's truly been hard — very difficult," Denham said. "Because it happened to me before, I am very afraid. I am."

Denham, a single mother with three children, is already making financial concessions — just in case she's one of the unlucky ones.

She bought a 2007 PT Cruiser last weekend because her old car gave out on her. But, worried about her possible layoff, she returned the car three days later for an older and less expensive Hyundai Sonata.

Still, Denham said, losing her job will be financially devastating.

"It's going to kill me," she said. "I really don't know what I'm going to do."

Another truck driver, Alicia Robinson, said the hardest part is "just waiting for them to tell us who was on the list."

She said that two of her co-workers have already been laid off. They were relatively new hires and didn't have as much seniority as other employees.

"They were good workers. It was hard to see them go," said Robinson, a 12-year employee. "They took it well, but you can tell there's some sadness."

Amid the layoffs, some good news has emerged.

The Atlanta Fire Department initially thought it would have to lay off 21 recruits who are currently in the department's fire academy, along with nine civilian employees, Capt. Bill May said.

But a slew of retirements, and some more that are expected in the coming months, might mean that the department won't have to give out any pink slips to the firefighters in training.

"It really turned out to be a good outcome to a potentially bad situation," May said.

Likewise, Atlanta police will not lose any police officers.

"We're definitely happy that we're not losing any sworn personnel," Atlanta police Deputy Chief George Turner said. "Clearly, with the kind of [budget] numbers we were talking about, anything and everything was being considered."

The department did hand out pink slips to one crime-scene technician and 26 part-time police assistants, all of whom did administrative work. The full-time civilian workers who still have their jobs, Turner said, will have to pick up the slack.

"The work has to continue to be done," the deputy chief said. "We know that there will be some delays. We just hope that it won't be noticeable to the public."