
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 9, 1991                   TAG: 9103090384
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PROVIDENCE, R.I.                                LENGTH: Medium

R.I. SHUTS DOORS FOR DAY, GIVES 19,000 FURLOUGHS

No welfare checks were written Friday in Rhode Island. No criminals were prosecuted, no driver's licenses were issued or renewed, no legislation was passed, and not a single lawyer filed a new case in state court.

State government, the largest employer in Rhode Island, simply did not open. And it will do that nine more times before the end of the fiscal year on June 30 in an effort not to go broke.

From state parks to the Statehouse, doors were locked and most workers were told to stay home.

"It's a total hardship," said Norman Miller, who led a band of Transportation Department workers picketing in front of the Statehouse and the Registry of Motor Vehicles in downtown Providence.

They were among the roughly 19,000 state workers furloughed Friday.

The workers face the prospect of losing 10 percent of their annual pay as Gov. Bruce Sundlun tries to rein in what he describes as the worst state budget deficit in the nation, when measured as a percentage of total spending.

The budget started out at $1.5 billion but now is $222 million in the red, roughly 15 percent of anticipated spending.

"I'm terribly sorry we had to shut down," the governor said after meeting with Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady and local business leaders.

Because of a constitutional requirement to balance the budget, Sundlun canceled consultants' contracts, slashed departmental budgets and won legislative approval of tax increases - an increase of 20 percent for personal income, 11 percent for business profits and 5 cents per gallon for gasoline.

Still facing a shortfall, he turned his attention to personnel, laying off 108 non-union managers and 470 of the state's 16,300 unionized workers.

"I've asked all Rhode Islanders to sacrifice, and they have," he said in a speech last week. "Now I'm asking state employees to join the rest of us."

Unionized state workers, who protested that they were illegally locked out of their jobs, said Sundlun had not lived up to his campaign promises of taking a business-sense approach to state government by cutting workers at the top.

"I had faith in Sundlun for his business expertise, but it seems like his answer for every problem is to shut down, and that's not what he learned in business school," said Transportation Department engineer James Duffer, 36.

by CNB