WSJ: Cuomo contemplating as many as 12,000 layoffs
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s new budget isn’t due until February 1st, but advance rumblings from Albany suggest that the pain will be severe. This from the Wall Street Journal.
While Mr. Cuomo has not settled on a figure, the governor in recent days has told lawmakers and other officials that he is looking at dismissing 10,000 to 12,000 workers, or more than 5% of the state’s public work force, the individuals say.
Gov. Cuomo marches into this battle riding sky-high poll numbers, which suggests that he might have the clout to accomplish something close to those reductions. Again from the Journal:
“It’s obviously going to be an extreme amount of pain and suffering for families across the state,” said a Republican senator on Wednesday evening. “The dark days of the ’70s have returned.”
As we’ve noted here in the In Box for a while, the North Country is heavily reliant on state jobs, and pass-through grants from Albany that fund much of our local government sector.
Even if we only receive a proportionate share of the cuts, the impact on our economy could far outstrip that of other regions.
If that doesn’t have your attention, Gov. Cuomo is also signaling that he’ll slash spending for two other drivers of North Country jobs: public schools and the Medicaid program that supports hospitals and nursing homes.
Well the people are getting what they voted for (the Republican agenda as validated by the 96% who voted for Cuomo or Paladino) and for what they say they want (80% in Siena poll who backed no new taxes and no new borrowing). Buyer’s remorse?
No remorse here. I hope and pray that our new governor finally sticks it to the public employee unions that have been sticking it to us for so long.
I imagine most of the jobs that will be cut will actually be lost to attrition and not actual layoffs.
Hopefully we will get beyond the myth of the over compensated government worker:
On average, state and local employees earn $6,061 per year less than their private-sector counterparts. Add in health and insurance benefits and the average public worker earns $2,001 less per year than her peer in the private sector.
MOre at:
http://epi.3cdn.net/8808ae41b085032c0b_8um6bh5ty.pdf
The truth is government workers are being asked to subsidize society at large with their lower pay.
DBW,
It’s not a myth, at least not in NYS. The pension, health care benefits, and job security public employees are eligible for are unavailable in the private sector. I see the study you cite mentions national figures and is not a study of NY public employees, making it irrelevant to this discussion. Nice try.
Scratchy – You are going to have to be more specific than that. We have all heard the horror stories about the political patronage jobs
and related abuses, but those are the exceptions. Most of the state jobs are $20-$40K a year secretaries, keyboard specialists and janitors, and health aides and tradesman. The plumber and hvac guy on state payroll sure isn’t getting $60 an hour like the plumber than comes to the house to make a repair. The MBA teaching at a community college is making far less than she could in the private sector. While state workers and local government seem to do ok in the North Country they really struggle to make ends meet in other parts of the state where the cost of living and property taxes are higher. State employment is not some kind ofgravy train for the average worker.
Well I disagree. There are not many government workers that “really struggle” in this state and most of them do quite well in the North Country. Some get free health insurance when they work- insurance that stays free when they retire. Keep in my mind when you hire a plumber, the money you pay her isn’t pure profit- she has to cover various expenses like tools, mileage, etc.
If corrections officers and teachers are doing so bad, then how does someone working at Stewart’s or Wal-mart make ends meet?
The problem is made worse in places like upstate NY because of the dying private sector.
Sure if you go down to NYC and compare compensation in the financial services industry to compensation in government you see the private sector doing much better for equal type qualifications. However if you look at the North Country the best jobs are indeed in government, which is not a knock necessarily on government just that most people do not feel the government employees have a bad deal at all. For example a public school teacher in St. Lawrence County would get better benefits than a professor at Clarkson or St. Lawrence who contribute quite a bit to the health plan per month. A social worker at DSS makes substantially more than a social worker at a private not for profit in the North Country. Those kind of things stand out to people.
The bottom line though is that it does not matter if we can’t afford it we can’t afford it.
It will be interesting to see where the cuts come from. If it’s business as usual, the people who actually provide the services will get the ax while the folks higher up the food chain will still have a job. It would be nice if they would actually cut the do-nothing jobs for a change,
Was talking about this with my old partner yesterday. I’m willing to bet a cupa joe that all the cuts are the lower echelons. It’s the top end that needs cutting. It’ll never happen though.
I would agree Bret. For example when the state does cut backs in the human services sector they cut the subcontracts at the not for profits first, where the services are being done by pretty low paid workers. The higher the compensation the less likely they will be cut, but that kind of makes sense government cuts where it is the easiest and it is easier to cut those with less power.