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The legislature is mulling over the idea of reducing spending on state employees, either by cutting pay by 10%, or by cutting 10% of the work force. If those are the choices, I think the 10% lay off is the way to go. If pay is cut 10%, morale will plummet. State workers are already about 15% behind their private sector counterparts. Butch Otter was proposing 3-4 years of 5% raises just to get state workers even. They got about that one year, and will not get raises this fiscal year. So cutting salaries will widen the wage gap/IdaBlue. More here.
Question: Should Idaho lawmakers cut 10% of the pay or of the staff of state employees?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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moscow_minidoka on February 05 at 12:25 p.m.
The state should do NEITHER. State employees do not make competitive wages - they should not have their wages cut. State agencies do not suffer from overstaffing, at least not in my experience - staff should not be cut, either.
What Idaho needs to do is to actually take care of the government agencies it DOES have, so that they can operate well and do the jobs the people have mandated for them, instead of having to constantly cut corners etc.
Idaho’s best and brightest stream out the door to other states because of low wages here… why exacerbate that problem?
Me on February 05 at 1:26 p.m.
Maybe because we are all having to do it in this economy now too? The companies we work for and own are having to make these same decisions and if you asked the workers they would say all the same things you said about not having competetive wages etc. The revenue is going down - we are all having to make decisions like these. Why are goverment agencies immune?
moscow_minidoka on February 06 at 7:02 a.m.
I wasn’t suggesting gov’t agencies should be immune - however, there often seems to be a severe case of sour grapes when it comes to cutting “state workers.” People have in mind some obese lady behind a counter who doesn’t really work or earn her keep… those people exist everywhere, not just in a state agency.
In Idaho, especially, it seems that anti-govt sentiment often gets misdirected towards your friends and neighbors who help keep this state running.