Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 6, 1991 TAG: 9102060506
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Moreover, it's a fairly significant pay cut for many on the state payroll. This is a work force whose salaries, generally, have lagged behind those for comparable jobs in the private sector. It's a work force that already has seen a modest raise, scheduled for this month, eliminated. Employees are given no hope of raises in the foreseeable future.
State workers were upset enough when the governor began talking last month of possible six-day furloughs. Now they have been seriously demoralized by Wilder's announcement Friday that the growing revenue shortfall - now $2.2 billion - would require unprecedented three-week furloughs for all 110,000 state employees, to save the state $84.8 million.
Painful and difficult to implement as these furloughs may be, they are nonetheless a good idea. They are no substitute for serious budget analysis; they tend not to target savings where cutbacks are most warranted. But they should be tolerable enough to state employees, given the alternatives.
Rebuffing Wilder on this and other of his cost-saving strategies, the Senate Finance Committee's budget bill turns thumbs down on furloughs. It says state agencies should cut their operating budgets an additional 4.5 percent (rather than the additional 3 percent reduction proposed by Wilder).
The House Appropriations Committee's budget bill limits furloughs to eight days and would force Wilder to use his $200-million "rainy day" reserve fund before he orders any state workers to take leaves without pay.
Most state employees, to be sure, would prefer either committee's proposals over Wilder's plans to furlough them. But the legislative plans also could have bleak consequences. At this point, the state is witnessing a three-ring circus of revenue-juggling acts; Wilder's should not be dismissed as the worst.
Yes, the furlough plan is designed to save money. But the governor also designed it, in good faith, to save state employees' jobs. It is a continuing wonder that, in downturns, more private companies don't consider furlough plans or other alternatives to layoffs.
Some 600 state workers already have been laid off, or will be laid off by July 1, as a result of earlier spending reductions. In the midst of a deepening recession and a budget crisis that may not yet have reached its nadir, the furlough plan could prevent additional layoffs by the thousands.
The governor is not trying to balance the budget on the backs of state workers, as he has been accused of doing. Three weeks without pay won't be easy, especially for employees who barely are making ends meet now on lower-scale salaries. But a furlough is better than a pink slip and the prospect of spending months on the unemployment line.
The unstated, understandable, but not especially attractive assumption of state employees who oppose the furloughs is that their colleagues would suffer layoffs while they would be spared. Better to spread the pain.
by CNB