Governor To Offer Buyout to 2,000 State Employees

Governor Phil Bredesen says he’ll offer buyouts to 2,000 state employees as part of plan to cut $468 million from next year’s budget.

The governor didn’t say how much money the buyout will take, but it will be offered to a range of job-holders, not just those eligible for early retirement. Bredesen says he wants the lay-offs of state staff to be voluntary, if at all possible.

“If I’m not successful in getting it voluntarily, then there will be an involuntary one following that, in accordance with the civil service procedures, and all the process that exists. But I’m, But I’m, I’m going to try very hard to make it voluntary and to put an attractive enough package on the table that it happens that we get enough people participating.”

Bredesen says the revised budget will put some of his own programs on the cutting block, including his expansion of pre-Kindergarten classes, which he called a personal disappointment.

Bredesen is scheduled to deliver the fully revised budget to a joint convention of the General Assembly Monday afternoon.

WEB EXTRA

Bredesen says he wanted to make layoffs voluntary – and paid for.

“When you look at something the size of four hundred and sixty-eight million additional dollars, after the almost two hundred [million] we’ve already taken out, it’s pretty clear that you can’t get from here to there without having some personnel reductions in state government. What I’m proposing is going to be a voluntary plan, and I’ll describe that to you in a moment. But we’re going to reduce the personnel in the executive branch of state government, which is what I have responsible, responsibility for, five percent. That represents two thousand and eleven jobs”.

“Our package will probably not be as rich as a private package would typically be, nor do I think it would have to be. But the idea is basically to offer somebody some cash payment, probably based on, among other things, the number of years they’ve been here, so someone who’s been here a longer period of time would be offered a larger payment. There may be other things we can do, some extension of health benefits for a few months, or something like that….”

The buyouts, he says, will come from one-time funds.

“The buyouts would come from, not the Rainy Day Fund, but from reserve funds in general. I feel I can justify that because the buyout is obviously a one-time expenditure, once you have written that check to that person there’s no further obligation.”

Bredesen made no apologies for the turndown in revenues, and speculated that the worst isn’t over yet.

“The Budget Department has records, financial records, in their offices going back to 1981. April, this month that just ended, was the worst month for tax collections for that entire period since 1961. It was the largest drop over the previous year’s tax, tax collections. The first quarter of this year was the third-worst first quarter that we have had, and the second quarter is….that we’re in now, is certainly shaping up to be , to be worst than that.”

The governor says the State Funding Board left him a range of shortfall that went as high as $560 million and as low as $468 million.

“Because these cuts will involve personnel reductions, I’m going to take the lowest number that is within that range, the $468 million. Because, I think, given the fact this represents personnel cuts, I’d like to minimize those at the front end. We will continue to watch this very carefully in the months ahead and will continue to adjust the budgets to reflect the realities of the monies that are …coming in.”

As for cutting his pre-Kindergarten expansion plan:

“It was very hard for me to make the pre-K decision. Again, I’m not going backwards in pre-K. All the classrooms that are out there today will be… continuing in place, and the inflationary addition to that, as with the BEP, is in there, I think it’s about two, two and a half million dollars, to pay for inflation. But there are not new classrooms this year, and of course that is a personal disappointment to me, as is the lack of funds for BEP two-point-oh, as are a lot of other things you will see in the budget.”

In general, the governor says the revised budget he’ll present won’t be pretty.

“That is a difficult picture for the state. I don’t have to explain to anyone that there’s not very many good things, good new things, in a budget that has those kinds of cuts.”