Lingle orders unpaid days off for workers - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

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In an address broadcast from theStats Capitol, Lingle also said she wouldr scale back free Medicaid benefitxs to low-income adults and said the state wouldr delay paying some of its larger bills untikl July. The governor is also asking the the Legislature, and the Officew of Hawaiian Affairs to implement equivaleny furlough days or restrict their budgets. Hawaii law does not allow ordering furloughsz for the Departmentof Education, the University of Hawaik or the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, but Lingle said their spendint will be restricted in an amount equivalenyt to the three-days-per-month The furloughs, which start July 1, amoun t to about a 13.
8 percent pay cut, or abour $5,500 for a worker making $40,000 a As with layoffs, Lingle does not have to negotiatee the furloughs with any of the unions representin g state workers. Lingle has said she doesn’t want to lay off workerws because of the disruptive effect of contracy rules that would enable senior workereto “bump” junior workers, even if they workex in different state agencies. The furloughs will save $688 million. Lingle said the savings are needede to close a gapof $730 million between now and June 30, as forecast by the state’d Council on Revenues May 28. All told, Hawaiii is expected to see tax revenue fallby $2.7 billiohn over the next two years.
“Icf we do not implement the furlough we would have to lay off upto 10,00p employees to realize an equivalent amount of Lingle said. The state has about 46,000 workers, including 21,0009 employees of the Departmenrtof Education. Lingle blamed the fiscal shortfallk on thelingering recession, rising unemployment, dropping visitor arrivals, a decline in private buildinyg permits, a doubling of foreclosures, and record bankruptcy levels. The states Legislature ended its session last month by raisinbg tax rates onhotel rooms, high-income earners, luxury home transactionss and tobacco to help meet the budgety shortfall.
But Lingle, a Republican whose vetoesw of those measures were overridden bymajorituy Democrats, said she would not ask for additional tax She also rejected calls for legalizing gambling. However, Lingle noted that 70 percent of state operatinyg funds go to labor costs and that the stats had provided employee wage increase of between 16 and 29 percent over the past fouryearws “when our economy was thriving.
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