Last January, the Shumlin administration announced that it had struck a tentative deal with the Vermont State Employees Association. In exchange for a promise of no more layoffs, the administration would ask for a smaller suite of labor concessions and tradeoffs that would add up to $12 million.
Read about Shumlin’s original proposal.
As the state marks the beginning of fiscal year 2012 on July 1, the administration is more than halfway there. It has found $5 million in “vacancy savings,” that is a “soft” hiring freeze, in which department commissioners and agency secretaries have not refilled positions that have been left vacant. Another $2 million is coming out of state workers’ pockets in the form of additional contributions to the state workers’ retirement fund.
Several of the Shumlin administration’s proposals, however, have fallen flat. Voluntary furloughs (in which state employees choose to work and earn less) and private contract reductions are not generating anticipated savings. That’s in part, state and union officials say, because of previous cuts to labor.
Back in January, Shumlin said state workers had made a “tremendous sacrifice” already. Over the course of the Great Recession, there have been a series of painful, ongoing reductions in force and pay cuts. Classified employees agreed to a 3 percent pay cut, exempt employees accepted a 5 percent reduction in pay and 660 positions were eliminated.
The good news was (is) that in fiscal year 2011 and 2012, no mass layoffs materialized. The bad news is, more savings of the type the Shumlin administration has advocated for are harder to come by than originally anticipated.
Shumlin officials have not, for example, been able to identify $2 million in reductions to private contracts. Secretary of the Agency of Administration Jeb Spaulding said they had not hit their target savings because many of the state’s contractors (he cited FairPoint Communications as an example) had already taken 3 percent cuts last year, as a result of the Challenges for Change, government restructuring effort.
“We’re spending more time on contracts we can get out of altogether,” Spaulding said.
Nor has the state found the hoped-for $2 million in savings through voluntary furloughs.
Last week, the Vermont Department of Health announced it would not allow state workers, who are responsible for manning the dozen or so field offices around the state, to take furlough time. The across-the-board decision, made by commissioner Dr. Harry Chen, riled several workers who sought redress with state representatives at the end of last week.
Nancy Erickson, the director of communications for the Health Department, said in a voicemail message that her agency lost 30 percent if its workforce in 2009 and the district offices were hardest hit. The Health Department, she said, denied all of the furlough requests from district offices because there just aren’t enough employees to do the work in those locations. In fact, the department needs more employees – it’s actively trying to recruit about 18 new workers.
So far, about $250,000 to $300,000 in voluntary furlough reductions have been approved, according to Kate Duffy, commissioner of the Department of Human Resources. The dollar figure represents about 100 employees who have been granted permission to take time off in lieu of pay. About 25 to 30 workers’ requests have been denied in the first application round, which ended on June 15, she said. The range in total furlough time is from about eight hours to several hundred hours in reduced work time, according to Duffy. The largest number of requests came from the Agency of Transportation.
“We’ve encouraged people to participate in this program,” Duffy said. “It’s something we’re doing obviously to save money — with an eye to maintaining services. Taxpayers need to have their needs met. With that in mind we are encouraging people to try it.”
The discretionary furlough approvals or denials are made by commissioners and secretaries across state government. Duffy said ideally between 600 and 800 state employees would be able to participate. Given the already deep cuts in state government, that goal, she said, might not be realistic. When the program was launched, her department had “no idea” what actual response to anticipate from workers.
“(The decisions are) based on whether it’s reasonable, whether an agency or dept can get its work done and still meet services,” Duffy said.
Jes Kraus, executive director of the Vermont State Employees Association, said the denials and low number of furlough requests “may highlight how severe the cuts have been in recent years.”
“One of the problems is, we’re already pretty strapped for people who are available to do the work,” Kraus said. “As a result of recent reductions, there isn’t going to be the ability for people in some places to take time off.
“What I worry about is, we’ve seen cuts in state government, but the amount of work has not diminished,” Kraus said. “I think employees and managers are certainly feeling the pressure.”
Though the voluntary furloughs aren’t as successful as she’d like them to be, Duffy said it’s “much better to do it (make cuts) this way, in little pieces where we can, rather than something more drastic or less humane.”
