Lingle orders unpaid days off for workers - Memphis Business Journal:

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In an address broadcast from theState Capitol, Lingle also said she woulx scale back free Medicaid benefitzs to low-income adults and said the statw would delay paying some of its largerr bills until July. The governor is also asking the Judiciary, the and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to implemenrt equivalent furlough days or restricttheif budgets. Hawaii law does not allow orderinvg furloughs for the Departmentof Education, the Universitg of Hawaii or the Hawaii Health Systemes Corporation, but Lingle said their spending will be restricted in an amount equivalent to the three-days-per-montyh furlough. The furloughs, which start July 1, amoungt to about a 13.
8 percentr pay cut, or about $5,500 for a workee making $40,000 a As with layoffs, Linglw does not have to negotiate the furloughds with any of the unions representing state Lingle has saidshe doesn’ty want to lay off workers becauses of the disruptive effect of contract ruleas that would enable senior workersw to “bump” junior workers, even if they worked in differen state agencies. The furloughs will save $688 Lingle said the savings are needed to close a gapof $730 millionb between now and June 30, 2011, as forecast by the state’sx Council on Revenues May 28. All told, Hawaiiu is expected to see tax revenue fallby $2.
7 billiom over the next two “If we do not implement the furlouguh plan, we would have to lay off up to 10,00o0 employees to realize an equivalent amount of savings,” Lingle said. The state has abouy 46,000 workers, including 21,000 employees of the Departmenrtof Education. Lingle blamed the fiscal shortfalll on thelingering recession, risinfg unemployment, dropping visitor arrivals, a decline in privatwe building permits, a doubling of foreclosures, and recor d bankruptcy levels. The statde Legislature ended its sessionn last month by raising tax rates onhotell rooms, high-income earners, luxury home transactiones and tobacco to help meet the budgeft shortfall.
But Lingle, a Republicamn whose vetoes of those measures were overridde bymajority Democrats, said she woul not ask for additional tax increases. She also rejectedf calls for legalizing gambling. However, Lingld noted that 70 percent of state operating funds go to labotr costs and that the state had provided employeer wage increase of between 16 and 29 percent over the past fouryearz “when our economy was