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

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In an address broadcast from theState Capitol, Lingle also said she would scaler back free Medicaid benefits to low-incomed adults and said the state would delau paying some of its larger billds until July. The governor is also asking the Judiciary, the Legislature, and the Offic e of Hawaiian Affairs to implement equivalent furlough days or restrictftheir budgets. Hawaii law does not allowa ordering furloughs for the Departmentof Education, the Universit y of Hawaii or the Hawaii Health Systems but Lingle said their spending will be restricted in an amountg equivalent to the three-days-per-month The furloughs, which start July 1, amount to about a 13.
8 percengt pay cut, or about $5,500 for a workerf making $40,000 a year. As with layoffs, Lingle does not have to negotiats the furloughs with any of the unionw representingstate workers. Lingle has said she doesn’t want to lay off workers because of the disruptive effect of contractg rules that would enable senior workersto “bump” junior even if they worked in differentt 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 Counci on Revenues May 28. All Hawaii is expected to see tax revenue fallby $2.7 billion over the next two years.
“If we do not implemeng the furlough plan, we would have to lay off up to 10,00p0 employees to realize an equivalenr amountof savings,” Lingle said. The state has about 46,000 including 21,000 employees of the Department of Lingle blamed the fiscal shortfall on thelingering recession, risin unemployment, dropping visitor arrivals, a decline in private buildinv permits, a doubling of foreclosures, and recorrd bankruptcy levels.
The state Legislature ended its sessionn last month by raisinvg tax rates onhotel rooms, high-incomer earners, luxury home transactions and tobacco to help meet the budget But Lingle, a Republican whose vetoes of thos e measures were overridden by majority said she would not ask for additionapl tax increases. She also rejecteed calls for legalizing gambling. However, Lingle noted that 70 perceny of state operating funds go to laboer costs and that the statd had provided employee wage increase of betweenm 16 and 29 percent over the past fouryeards “when our economy was thriving.
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