Anxious times for state employees

October 20, 2008 by senatormcconnell

When the Legislature gathers this week to slash the budget, jobs probably will be on the line

They had the budget talk at Sea Grant Consortium the other day, the same one folks at every state agency in South Carolina have had recently.

Rick DeVoe, the executive director, told his staff what’s going on: The state Legislature has to cut nearly half a billion dollars out of the budget, and the governor has asked for a list of recommended cuts.

The good news: Only 11 percent of the budget at Sea Grant comes from the state. The bad news: That’s the money that pays their salaries.

“They are concerned,” DeVoe said of his staff. “But it’s not like we haven’t been through this before.”

Across the Lowcountry, across the state, nearly 65,000 state employees will be nervously watching the Statehouse this week as the General Assembly takes either an ax or a scalpel to the state budget.

The Legislature could make across-the-board cuts, or lawmakers could pore through the budget looking to cut things they don’t like.

It’s expected to be messy. Jobs could be lost, careers ended. Some state employees are nervous, others merely paying attention. Still others have heard this song all too often.

The last time the state had budgeting problems, between 2002 and 2004, some 700 state employees lost their jobs, and thousands of others were furloughed. It was a scary time to be a state employee, but this round is even worse. Back then, the economy wasn’t this bad.

The various state agencies all have reacted differently to the threat.

The Department of Motor Vehicles says that if staff must be cut, it will start with the 82 part-time workers in various DMV field offices.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control, which has its Ocean and Coastal Resource Management office in North Charleston, has outlined $14.3 million in cuts it could make, but there’s a question of how that would affect employees.

Many DHEC staffers are paid with a mixture of state and federal funds, as are more than one-third of the state’s full-time employees.

The Department of Corrections, already facing a $23 million budget shortfall before this mess began, says it can’t cut workers, and has instead proposed losing prison chaplains, education programs and the one-way bus tickets they give to inmates when they are released.

Most departments are trying to reassure their employees that jobs will be the last thing cut. The Citadel’s president, Lt. Gen. John W. Rosa, sent a memo to his staff last week to let them know he doesn’t see staff cuts in the military college’s future.

To make do, the college is leaving positions open, reducing the library’s information technology budget and delaying a salary study.

“Please know that The Citadel remains committed to doing all that we can to minimize the impact of further budget cuts on our personnel,” Rosa said.

Although Gov. Mark Sanford has said that he believes jobs will have to be cut, the General Assembly has remained noncommittal. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman said he doesn’t know if there will be layoffs.

“This is the toughest I’ve faced in my 28 years,” Leatherman, R-Florence, said. “Obviously, there is going to be some hurt throughout state government.”

House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, said the Legislature will not be immune to the cuts, and that everything has to be on the table.

Already, some lawmakers are looking at programs or cash-fat agencies that could make up the difference for places that can’t handle any more loss of revenue — they have looked at chairs of excellence programs at state colleges, for instance.

And some lawmakers want to cut the competitive grants program, which provides money for local projects. But that would save the state only about $8 million, nowhere near the $488 million that has to go.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said the Legislature should look to avoid losing the efficiency of a trained workforce.

“We don’t need to be balancing the budget on the backs of workers,” McConnell said.

But that is something state agencies might have to face soon. Reggie Lloyd, the State Law Enforcement Division’s director, said layoffs are part of his contingency plan, mostly focused on 42 full-time positions held by temporary workers or retirees hired in an incentive program.

Lloyd did not want to provide specifics because he did not want to make his workers any more nervous than they already are.

“It is not the most pleasant thing to do, and it’s not the first thing we want to do, or even the second,” Lloyd said.

By Brian Hicks , Yvonne Wenger
The Post and Courier
October 19, 2008

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