Lingle orders unpaid days off for workers - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

humojo.wordpress.com
In an address broadcast from the State Lingle also said she would scale back free Medicaisd benefitsto low-income adults and said the statr would delay paying some of its larger billsa until July. The governor is also asking the Judiciary, the and the Office of Hawaiianh Affairs to implement equivalent furlough days or restrictgtheir budgets. Hawaii law does not allow orderingh furloughs for the Department of the University of Hawaii or the Hawaij HealthSystems Corporation, but Lingle said their spendingb will be restricted in an amount equivalent to the three-days-per-month The furloughs, which start July 1, amount to abou a 13.
8 percent pay cut, or about $5,500 for a workert making $40,000 a year. As with layoffs, Lingls does not have to negotiate the furloughs with any of the unionsz representingstate workers. Lingl has said she doesn’t want to lay off workerw because of the disruptivwe effect of contract rulex that would enable senior workersto “bump” junior even if they worked in different state agencies. The furloughs will save $688 million. Lingle said the savings are needed to close a gapof $730 milliojn between now and June 30, 2011, as forecasgt by the state’s Council on Revenues May 28. All told, Hawaiki is expected to see tax revenue fallby $2.
7 billion over the next two “If we do not implement the furlough plan, we would have to lay off up to 10,000p employees to realize an equivalenrt amount of savings,” Lingle said. The state has abour 46,000 workers, including 21,000 employees of the Department of Education. Lingle blame the fiscal shortfall on the lingering rising unemployment, dropping visitor a decline in private buildingv permits, a doubling of foreclosures, and record bankruptcu levels. The state Legislature endef its session last month by raisingh tax rates onhotel high-income earners, luxury home transactions and tobacco to help meet the budgeyt shortfall.
But Lingle, a Republican whose vetoes of thoswe measures were overridden by majority said she would not ask for additionaltax increases. She also rejectedf calls for legalizing gambling. However, Lingle notexd that 70 percent of state operating funda go to labor costs and that the state had providex employee wage increase of betweehn 16 and 29 percent over the past fouryearzs “when our economy was