(Host) The Douglas administration says it can avoid cutting 320 state jobs if the state workers’ union agrees to additional pay and benefit cuts.
If the union doesn’t accept the proposal, the administration says it will be forced to close a state prison and make other sweeping changes to government services.
VPR’s John Dillon reports:
(Dillon) The union had offered to give up pay raises and accept unpaid time off as a way to avoid layoffs.
Administration officials say those steps don’t go far enough to reach the $17 million in labor costs they say needs to be trimmed from next year’s budget.
So the administration accepted part of the union’s proposal – mainly the freeze on pay raises – but said job cuts are still on the table. Here’s Administration Secretary Neale Lunderville:
(Lunderville) “As proposed here, there are 320 positions that are proposed to be eliminated.”
(Dillon) Lunderville made an offer that he hopes will be hard to refuse. He said the layoffs will take place unless the union accepts a 5% salary cut for workers earning more than $30,000 a year.
(Lunderville) "These are not number and titles to us. These are friends, they’re colleagues, they’re people we work with everyday … We know we need to make labor costs sustainable. We hope there’s another way to avoid these layoffs, we believe there is."
(Dillon) Lunderville also wants state workers to pay more of their health care premiums.
The potential job cuts affect many areas of state government. The state would close regional libraries, and a prison in St. Johnsbury. It would stop sending state inspectors to Vermont slaughter houses, relying instead on a federal inspection program.
Thirty-eight employees would be laid off from the Health Department, including social workers, nurses, and administrators. Specialists in preventing domestic violence would be let go.
The Agency of Natural Resources says it may need to lay off 23 people. Agency Secretary Jonathan Wood said seven jobs would be cut in the solid waste division alone. Much of the oversight on solid waste issues would be transferred to regional solid waste districts.
(Wood) "It’s a complex issue and it would be really much more beneficial for us if there could be an agreement reached where we could avoid these altogether."
(Dillon) But the proposal to cut salaries for the state’s middle income workers is probably a non-starter.
(Kraus) "I’m not optimistic that they’re going to view this as a viable response."
(Dillon) Jes Kraus is director of the Vermont State Employees Association. He said the administration’s proposal will be reviewed by leaders of the union’s bargaining units. But he said the proposed salary cuts are too deep.
(Kraus) “Certainly the impact to an employee who makes $35,000 a year to take a 5 percent pay cut is much, much more significant than the impact to somebody making $130,000 a year like some of the higher-paid exempt employees are. It’s really not much choice to an employee between keeping their job and be able to pay their mortgage. I mean, that’s really no choice at all.”
(Dillon) The state employees union says there are other ways to save money, such as reducing government contracts. The union will ask the Legislature to look carefully at all of the options.
For VPR News, I’m John Dillon in Montpelier.