By SHERRY HALBROOK
PEF dodged some very serious bullets when the state budget bills were passed and signed in late March and early April.
Unfortunately, the battle isn’t over and PEF is still dealing with the threat of thousands of state layoffs.

Wins
“We were very successful in achieving most of our budget priorities,” said PEF President Ken Brynien. “We stopped employee salary and benefit concessions, the merger and privatization of the state Department of Economic Development and the Foundation for Science and Technology, and the closing of Camp Georgetown Correctional Facility.

PEF helped persuade lawmakers to add funding for several state agencies and for Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) in Buffalo, where 24 researchers represented by PEF were abruptly laid off March 6. The state budget now funnels an additional $14.5 million in federal funding to RPCI to support operating costs associated with research. PEF is urging RPCI to restore the jobs.

The state employee concessions that PEF defeated include:
• Eliminating the 3 percent raise that started this April under the PS&T contract;

• Allowing the state to hold back (lag) five-days pay from each employee;

• Establishing a new Tier 5 in the state retirement system for new hires that would require them permanently to contribute 3 percent of their pay;

• Establishing a sliding-scale employee contribution for retiree health insurance; and

• Making the cost of the Medicare Part B reimbursement to retirees a cost of the New York State Health Insurance Plan rather than solely a cost to the employer.

“We also convinced state budget makers to make the wealthiest New Yorkers pick up a bigger share of the burden of closing this year’s budget gap. Some of our other recommendations to state leaders for increasing state revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars also were adopted,” Brynien added, “and we staved off permanent changes to the prior-notice requirements for closing state psychiatric, correctional and youth facilities.”

Losses
The governor ignored one of the greatest areas of potential savings recommended by PEF, reducing the state’s reliance on private consultants, which could save the state more than $700 million annually.

In spite of all PEF’s hard-earned successes, the budget casualty count is still significant and threatens to climb much higher.

For years, governors have tried to close a number of state correctional and youth facilities only to see those efforts turned back by the united efforts of PEF and legislators from the affected regions.

This year, the budget vacuum was too powerful and funding was eliminated for nine youth facilities, three prison camps, six prison annexes, and the Manhattan Addiction Treatment Center. Two additional youth facilities, Tryon and Allen, will see staff and service reductions.

Unresolved
Initially, the governor had proposed significant reductions in the state workforce, mostly to be accomplished through attrition.
However, as state revenues flagged, the governor announced in March that he would cut much deeper into the workforce.

The state budget that was enacted by early April is based on the assumption 8,700 additional state employee positions will be slashed to provide approximately $481 million in savings over the next two fiscal years.

“According to the governor, these layoffs, which are scheduled to take place by July, will come only from the ranks of PEF and other union members,” said Tom Cetrino, PEF’s director of civil service enforcement.

The governor has told the state’s Managerial and Confidential Unit employees they won’t be laid off. Instead, he rescinded their 2009-10 raises, performance advances, merit awards and longevity payments.

The 8,700 position reductions would be in addition to the 1,608 agency-specific position reductions already included in the budget.

The 8,700 attritions and layoffs are supposed to replace the General Fund savings that would have been generated by the elimination of the union members’ 2009, 3 percent raise ($360 million) and the five-day lag ($121 million).

The governor links the pay concessions to the layoffs as an either-or issue.

As this magazine goes to press in mid-April, the governor is asking the unions to accept one of two options:
• Five days of lagged pay and the new pension Tier 5; or

• Reduced raises (from 3 percent to 1.5 percent) for 2009-10 and for 2010-11, and the new Tier 5.
 
The governor offers a “guarantee” of no layoffs for one year for accepting the lagged pay. He would extend that guarantee to a second year for also accepting the reduced pay. Either way, he also insists on creating the new pension tier.

PEF is concerned the guarantee is unreliable and that to reopen the PS&T contract would nullify everything in it.

“Both the layoffs and the pay and pension cuts are entirely unnecessary. We have repeatedly shown the governor how he can save even more by cutting state waste and not state workers or their pay and pensions,” Brynien said.

“The governor simply chooses not to consider any other options.

“The governor refuses to discuss the hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on private contractors. He’s giving them raises of 4 percent to 5 percent this year, but he has not asked them to reopen those contracts,” Brynien said.