PEF to members: Fight cuts with facts

PEF to members: Fight cuts with facts

By SHERRY HALBROOK
Hard times force hard choices, and Gov. David Paterson thinks the state is headed for harder economic challenges in the next few years. That’s why he has put state operations on a spending diet that includes a hiring freeze.

He also has told state agencies they must submit lists of all of their programs and rank those programs by how necessary they are to achieving the agencies’ core missions.

Paterson has been ratcheting up the budget-reduction directives every few weeks. By late August, plans were underway to chop a total of $1.1 billion from the amount budgeted for state operations this year, which ends March 31, 2009.

Among the state programs and agencies seeing the largest cuts are:
• Correctional Services, nearly $250 million;
• SUNY Construction Fund, $245 million;
• Judiciary, $63 million;
• Police, $57 million;
• Health, $48 million;
• Mental Health, $44 million;
• Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund, $41.4 million; and
• Taxation and Finance, $38 million.

“Our members are seeing their expectations for improving state services to the public disappear before their eyes,” said PEF President Ken Brynien. “These repeated cuts coming so soon after the budget was passed and signed is leaving everyone reeling and wondering what will come next.”

You have the answers
PEF began to respond to this situation by meeting with the governor in early August (See report in the September issue of The Communicator.) and sharing ideas for the best ways to cut spending and improve state revenues.

“Now, we need the help of every PEF member to compile lists of specific services to the public that have been curtailed or eliminated as a result of these agency cuts, as well as any cuts that could endanger public health or safety, or reduce economic activity. For example, we want to know if inspections of nursing homes or child care facilities are being reduced by a certain number or percentage as a result of these cuts.

“We need documented information about the negative effect of state agency cuts to help us prepare effective arguments against additional cuts this year or next year that could result in facility closures, loss of PEF jobs and the potential for layoffs,” Brynien said.

Please report any changes to your local PEF labor-management chair, council leader or Executive Board member. They should pass that information to the agency-level PEF L-M chairs, who will then forward to the PEF Civil Service Enforcement Department.
“Your help will make all the difference in our ability to educate state leaders and the public about the effects of these budget cuts,” Brynien said.

Workforce changes
According to PEF Director of Civil Service Enforcement Tom Cetrino, the budget cuts that have been implemented so far are not expected to result in layoffs of state employees this year.

“For the most part, these cuts will not significantly affect the security of PEF members’ jobs,” Cetrino said.

Many PEF members, however, will feel the chilling effects of the hiring freeze. It will shut off most opportunities for promotions and inter-agency transfers. As increasing numbers of employees leave state service, their work will fall on diminishing ranks of co-workers.

PEF Vice President Pat Baker said she is concerned about the loss of institutional memory from the retirements of so many of the state’s most experienced employees.

“This spring, I attended a retirement party for seven PEF members, all intensive case managers at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center. They had combined service of more than 200 years,” Baker said. “We thank them and wish them well, but that’s a substantial loss of experience from one job title at one worksite. It will be difficult to make that up. And it’s happening throughout state service.”

According to a report on the state workforce issued in January by the state Department of Civil Service, nearly 31,000 (approximately 18 percent) of state employees will be eligible to retire over the next five years. Nearly 12,000 employees left state service in 2007, and 45 percent of those were retirements.

“The state Office of Mental Health probably made an effort to fill those ICM positions at Creedmoor,” Cetrino said. “That provided an opportunity for promotions and to bring in younger employees with new skills ideas. But the hiring freeze will shut that door in most cases and the state will continue to lose its most experienced and knowledgeable employees with no new employees with new skills and fresh ideas to replace them.

“As painful as attrition is under a hiring freeze, however, it is still a far better alternative than layoffs.