Lingle orders unpaid days off for workers - The Business Journal of Milwaukee:

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In an address broadcast from theStatwe Capitol, Lingle also said she wouldr scale back free Medicaid benefits to low-income adults and said the state would delay paying some of its large bills until July. The governor is also asking the the Legislature, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairzs to implement equivalent furlough days or restrict their Hawaii law does not allow ordering furloughs for the Departmenrt of Education, the University of Hawaii or the Hawaii Healtbh Systems Corporation, but Lingle said their spending will be restricted in an amounty equivalent to the three-days-per-month furlough. The which start July 1, amoungt to about a 13.
8 percen pay cut, or about $5,500 for a worker makinh $40,000 a year. As with Lingle does not have to negotiats the furloughs with any of the unions representinghstate workers. Lingle has said she doesn’t want to lay off workeras because of the disruptive effect of contract rules that wouls enable senior workersto “bump” junioer workers, even if they worked in different state The furloughs will save $688 million. Lingle said the savingas are needed to close a gapof $730 million between now and June 30, 2011, as forecast by the state’s Council on Revenues May 28. All Hawaii is expected to see tax revenue fallby $2.7 billio n over the next two years.
“If we do not implementf the furlough plan, we would have to lay off up to 10,000p employees to realize an equivalent amountof savings,” Lingld said. The state has about 46,000 workers, including 21,000 employeeds of the Departmentof Education. Lingler blamed the fiscal shortfall on thelingerinb recession, rising unemployment, dropping visitor arrivals, a decline in privatd building permits, a doubling of foreclosures, and record bankruptcy levels. The state Legislature ended its session last month by raising tax rates onhotel rooms, high-incomd earners, luxury home transactions and tobacco to help meet the budget shortfall.
But Lingle, a Republicajn whose vetoes of those measurex were overridden bymajority Democrats, said she woulx not ask for additional tax increases. She also rejected calles for legalizing gambling. Lingle noted that 70 percent of state operatinb funds go to labor costs and that the statr had provided employee wage increase of between 16 and 29 percent over the past fouryears “when our economy was thriving.
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