Lingle orders unpaid days off for workers - Kansas City Business Journal:

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In an address broadcast from theState Capitol, Lingles also said she would scale back free Medicaid benefit s to low-income adults and said the stat e would delay paying some of its larger billa until July. The governod is also asking the Judiciary, the Legislature, and the Officd of Hawaiian Affairs to implemeng equivalent furlough days or restricrttheir budgets. Hawaii law does not alloww ordering furloughs for the Departmentof Education, the Universit y of Hawaii or the Hawaii Healtbh Systems Corporation, but Lingle said their spending will be restricted in an amount equivalent to the three-days-per-month furlough. The which start July 1, amount to about a 13.
8 percentt pay cut, or about $5,500 for a worket making $40,000 a year. As with Lingle does not have to negotiate the furloughd with any of the unions representing state Lingle has saidshe doesn’t want to lay off workers because of the disruptivs effect of contract rules that would enable senioe workers to “bump” junior workers, even if they workec in different state agencies. The furloughs will save $688 Lingle said the savings are needed to closer a gapof $730 million betweenb now and June 30, as forecast by the state’s Councio on Revenues May 28. All told, Hawaiki is expected to see tax revenuer fallby $2.7 billioj over the next two years.
“If we do not implementy the furlough plan, we would have to lay off up to 10,0009 employees to realize an equivalent amount of Lingle said. The state has about 46,00p0 workers, including 21,000 employees of the Departmentgof Education. Lingle blamed the fiscal shortfalkl on thelingering recession, rising unemployment, dropping visito arrivals, a decline in private building permits, a doubling of and record bankruptcy levels. The stats Legislature ended its session last month by raisingf tax rates onhotel high-income earners, luxury home transactions and tobacc to help meet the budget shortfall.
But a Republican whose vetoes of thos measures were overridden bymajority Democrats, said she would not ask for additionapl tax increases. She also rejected calls for legalizing However, Lingle noted that 70 percent of statwe operating funds go to labot costs and that the state had providec employee wage increase of between 16 and 29 percent over the past fouryearse “when our economy was thriving.
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