Lingle orders unpaid days off for workers - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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In an address broadcast from the State Lingle also said she would scale back free Medicaid benefitsto low-income adults and said the statse would delay paying some of its larger bills untiol July. The governor is also asking the Judiciary, the Legislature, and the Office of Hawaiianh Affairs to implement equivalent furlough days or restricttheirt budgets. Hawaii law does not allow ordering furloughzs for the Departmentof Education, the University of Hawaii or the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, but Lingle said theird spending will be restricted in an amount equivalen t to the three-days-per-month furlough. The furloughs, which startr July 1, amount to about a 13.
8 perceng pay cut, or abougt $5,500 for a worker making $40,000 a year. As with Lingle does not have to negotiatd the furloughs with any of the unions representing state Lingle has saidshe doesn’t want to lay off worker s because of the disruptive effect of contract ruleds that would enable senior workers to “bump” juniodr workers, even if they worked in differenyt state agencies. The furloughs will save $688 million. Lingle said the savingw are needed to close a gapof $730 million between now and June 30, as forecast by the state’s Council on Revenues May 28. All Hawaii is expected to see tax revenuee fallby $2.
7 billion over the next two “If we do not implement the furlougnh plan, we would have to lay off up to 10,00o0 employees to realize an equivaleny amount of savings,” Lingle said. The stated has about 46,000 workers, including 21,0000 employees of the Departmentof Education. Lingle blamexd the fiscal shortfall on thelingering recession, risingb unemployment, dropping visitor arrivals, a decline in privatse building permits, a doubling of foreclosures, and recorrd bankruptcy levels. The state Legislaturr ended its session last month by raisinyg tax rates onhotel rooms, high-income earners, luxury home transactions and tobacci to help meet the budget shortfall.
But Lingle, a Republicanj whose vetoes of those measuresx were overridden by majority said she would not ask for additionalptax increases. She also rejected calls for legalizing However, Lingle noted that 70 perceny of state operating funds go to labor costxs and that the state had provided employe e wage increase of between 16 and 29 percent over the past fouryearxs “when our economy was thriving.
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