Job, pay cut part of budget plant

Reduced salaries may cause employees to leave, while some vacant positions could go unfilled.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s administration says layoffs should be the last resort for state agencies trying to meet his call for budget cuts, but department heads have been contacting employees in recent weeks to tell them their jobs are gone or that they’ll have to take huge pay cuts.

In a couple of cases, Department of Corrections staffers would see their pay cut by more than half, while others would lose tens of thousands of dollars a year, accordto agency plans. Some employ

ees are having to consider lining up new jobs because they aren’t sure they can afford to continue working for the state.

Employment in state government — excluding the University System of Georgia — has dropped by about 16,000 workers since before the Great Recession, many leaving in the early years of the downturn when staffers were laid off, retired early or endured regular furloughs. State government today operates with about 20% fewer workers.

Now, the question is whether

the state will see another exodus because of Kemp’s demand for 4% spending cuts this year and 6% next year, and how many will be gone before the General Assembly returns in January to consider the

impact of those budget reductions. Another question: How much of the savings Kemp hopes to wring from state government — about $200 million this year and $300 million next year — will come from eliminating jobs that are currently vacant or will be because of high turnover rates in some agencies?

Many of the affected state agencies have said they will save big money by not filling vacant positions, according to emails and plans obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

That could mean little change

in the services Georgians use. Or it could mean heavier caseloads for child welfare workers and public defenders who remain or longer waits for obtaining driver’s licenses or testing criminal evidence.

Agency directors are saying very little about their plans, some of which have already gone into effect since they began receiving smaller allotments starting Oct. 1.

But lawmakers are receiving calls from state employees in their districts. “There is a lot of panic right now among rank-and-file workers,” said state Rep. Al Williams, a Democrat from Midway and a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Danny Kanso, a budget analyst for the left-leaning Georgia Budget and Policy Institute and a former aide to then-Republican Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, said that’s not surprising. “Some of these agencies already have high turnover rates,” Kanso said. “It’s not clear how they will be able to leave positions vacant. The question is, what are the consequences for Georgians?”

One attorney for a state agency who made less than $75,000 last year said she decided to look for another job when she was told she’d earn less because of the mandated cuts. With student loan debt and bills to pay, she figured she’d run through her savings quickly. She put out feelers, even though she was passionate about her work for the state.

“The first thought I had when I saw the email (about the cuts) was that I could just sell my car, and then I wouldn’t have to pay for car insurance and I could afford to keep my job,” she said. “And I thought that was crazy.”

The lawyer, who asked that her name not be used because her new employer hadn’t authorized her to speak about her experiences, said people in her agency were having to take side jobs to make ends meet.

“I don’t feel like I made a choice, it was made for me,” she said. “Before I opened the email, if anyone had ever asked me if I would quit, the answer would have been an emphatic, impassioned no. It was not something I would have even considered.”

The governor ordered the cuts in August to both prepare the state in case of an economic downturn and reallocate money for his priorities, including higher teacher pay.

Kemp had reason to be concerned: The state’s fiscal economist said there is a 50-50 chance of a mild recession next year, and tax collections have been slow the first three months of fiscal 2020, which began July 1.

Three-fourths of the state’s spending is exempt from the cuts — money that goes to fund k-12 schools and universities, the Medicaid public health care program, and to build and maintain roads and bridges. Most of the areas not exempt are personnel-heavy, such as the Georgia State Patrol and the agriculture extension service.

Kelly Farr, the governor’s budget director, told lawmakers that before backing lay

Kemp wanted agencies to cut travel, use technology to trim costs and consider leaving open vacancies.

In a memo to departments, Farr wrote, “Budget reductions are meant to identify opportunities to make state government more efficient through technology, by eliminating duplicative services, or by streamlining regulations, not through eliminating core services to taxpayers or across the board reductions in force or furloughs.”

Some agencies made personnel plans clear when they submitted budget proposals in early September. The Department of Human Services, for instance, listed more than 200 jobs to be cut, but it said they were or would be unfilled positions in an agency that traditionally has high turnover. The public defender office said in its plan it would furlough staffers 10 days through June 30, the equivalent of about two weeks of lost pay. It is unclear what parts of those plans have been implemented.

Beyond the initial proposals departments have mostly been mum about the cuts, especially after Kemp’s office directed them not to attend House and Senate budget hearings last month.

Several departments have proposed RIFs, or reductions in force, according to emails and documents obtained by the AJC using the state’s Open Records Act. In government speak, a RIF can mean a lay

salary cut or furlough in which the staffer has to take days off without pay.

The GBI laid off four of eight employees slated for RIFs from the Sex Offender Registration Review Board. All eight were offered different jobs in the agency, but only four accepted.

The Department of Corrections — possibly the hardest-hit agency — said that starting Oct. 21 it would increase the prices in prison commissaries for items such as Doritos, Spam, dental floss, book lights, Mother’s Day cards and hair gel. It also listed hundreds of positions that would be RIFed, in areas such as construction, food services, administration and education. Some would be laid off, others transferred to new jobs.

Big pay cuts would affect some starting in mid-November. The director of victims services would see a salary cut from $117,000 to about $45,000, according to the agency’s RIF plan. A senior training manager would be offered a lower-level job paying $35,000 — a 56% cut.

The plan includes 26 teachers in the system. About half would take pay cuts in the range of $25,000 a year. The two highest-paid teachers — earning about $101,000 a year — would face $37,727 cuts.

Corrections Commissioner Timothy Ward said the agency is focusing on making sure the front-line jobs are covered.

“Our core mission is to protect the folks who are running things at our facilities,” Ward said. “We might have a reduction in force, but we’re going to give people the opportunity to still be employed but doing those jobs that have a direct effect with our frontline core mission.”

The Department of Juvenile Justice listed about 42 position cuts, mostly layoffs in maintenance jobs. The Department of Driver Services, which handles driver’s licenses, listed cuts to examiner positions in several local offices.

Ben Harbin, who was the House Appropriations chairman when the Great Recession was first felt in Georgia in mid-2008, remembers the thousands of furloughs and layoffs that hit state government and schools at the time.

“Layoffs are unfortunate, but it’s a function of keeping state government going and making sure services are provided,” Harbin said.

But John Palmer, a Cobb County educator with the teacher, state employee and retiree group TRAGIC, said the state and schools lost a lot when spending was cut during the recession. School districts cut staff and increased class sizes. He suspects trimming the state budget this time will make government less, not more efficient.

“Just as teachers can’t teach 35 kids more efficiently than they can 25, adding to the workload of state employees will not allow those employees to work efficiently and quickly,” he said. “Thanks to pay freezes and lowered benefits, state agencies already have a difficult time recruiting and retaining quality employees. Lowering the agency budgets will only exacerbate that problem.”