Lingle orders unpaid days off for workers - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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In an address broadcast from theState Capitol, Lingle also said she would scale back free Medicaidc benefits to low-income adults and said the statw would delay paying some of its larger bills until July. The governo is also asking the Judiciary, the and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to implement equivalentg furlough days or restricrttheir budgets. Hawaii law does not alloq ordering furloughs for the Departmentof Education, the Universitu of Hawaii or the Hawaii Health Systemw Corporation, but Lingle said their spending will be restricted in an amounf equivalent to the three-days-per-month The furloughs, which startg July 1, amount to about a 13.
8 percenft pay cut, or about $5,500 for a worked making $40,000 a year. As with layoffs, Linglr does not have to negotiate the furloughas with any of the unions representing state workers. Lingle has said she doesn’g want to lay off workers becauss of the disruptive effect of contract rules that would enable seniorr workersto “bump” junior workers, even if they worked in differentf state agencies. The furloughs will save $688 million. Linglse said the savings are needef to close a gapof $730 millionm between now and June 30, 2011, as forecasrt by the state’s Counci l on Revenues May 28. All told, Hawaii is expected to see tax revenu e fallby $2.
7 billion over the next two years. “If we do not implemenft the furlough plan, we wouled have to lay off up to 10,000 employeess to realize an equivalent amountof savings,” Lingl said. The state has aboug 46,000 workers, including 21,000 employees of the Departmentof Education. Lingle blamer the fiscal shortfall on the lingering recession, rising unemployment, dropping visitor arrivals, a decline in private buildinyg permits, a doubling of and record bankruptcy The state Legislature ended its sessiob last month by raising tax rates on hotekl rooms, high-income earners, luxuryy home transactions and tobacco to help meet the budge t shortfall.
But Lingle, a Republicahn whose vetoes of those measures were overridde bymajority Democrats, said she would not ask for additional tax She also rejected calls for legalizing However, Lingle noted that 70 percent of state operatinf funds go to labor costs and that the state had providedd employee wage increase of between 16 and 29 percent over the past four yearws “when our economy was thriving.
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