THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 18, 1995 TAG: 9504180324
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVID M. POOLE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
Some 5,471 state workers will be looking for work or sailing off into early retirement May 1.
Gov. George F. Allen announced Monday that his administration had approved three-quarters of the applications that flooded in after the state offered an employee buyout program.
Allen restated his confidence that state agencies, like companies in the private sector, can shed thousands of employees without sacrificing services.
The downsizing effort is expected to top $100 million a year in eliminated salaries, though the exact number may not be known for months. The Allen administration put the savings between $160 million and $180 million, assuming that none of the 5,471 positions would be refilled.
But Secretary of Administration Mike Thomas acknowledged that state agencies have been given permission to refill about 400 slots and that public colleges and universities are seeking the authority to replace nearly 800 of 1,228 employees accepted under the buyout plan.
What is definite is that the state's payroll will shrink by at least 4,300, or about 4 percent of the overall work force of 108,500.
Allen has set a three-year goal of reducing the work force by 15 percent.
Here are some statistical highlights of the 1995 Workforce Transition Act:
The Department of Transportation will lose 1,226 employees, or about 11 percent of its staff. Thomas said much of VDOT's work will be parceled out to the private sector.
Other depleted agencies will be Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse, 643 workers; Department of Health, 378; Department of Motor Vehicles, 252; Virginia Tech, 240; and the Medical College of Virginia, 220.
A number of smaller agencies accepted 100 percent of buyout applications.
KEYWORDS: DOWNSIZING STATE EMPLOYEES by CNB