Editorial: Closing state offices to cut costs a poor idea

Difficult times call for difficult measures. Nothing illustrates that better than the unpleasant remedies fashioned by the Washington Legislature this year to deal with recession’s crushing impact on state government.

Taxes are going up. Services are going down.

That doesn’t mean, however, that state agencies shouldn’t do all they can to soften the double blow. While government can’t avoid disruptions entirely, it should manage cutbacks in a way that keeps the difficulties to a minimum.

Shutting offices for a day – as opposed to staying open with a reduced staff – does not soften the blow. It is likely, instead, to provoke anger, confusion and inconvenience for the citizens and taxpayers who rely on state services – and who, ultimately, pay for them.

Still, most state offices will be closed next Monday, the first of 10 closure days specified by the Legislature in a 2010 law that decrees payroll reductions. There will be one each month, except November and May, through June 2011. (Several specific entities, mostly those that provide critical services, are exempt.)

State agencies didn’t have to close, though. They had the choice to submit alternative plans for meeting their cost-cutting targets. There is no reason, for example, that state offices couldn’t work around furlough-driven absences the same way they do around vacation schedules. But while some agencies chose to submit alternative plans, several of them only added to the confusion by substituting different closure days than those set by the legislation.

Not that there isn’t confusion enough.

The governor’s office will observe six of the 10 closure days (it has to remain open during the four months of the 2011 legislative session). The Superintendent of Public Instruction’s office will close one day, next Monday. Other statewide elected officials’ offices will stay open on the 10 closure days by relying on other compensation-reduction strategies.

Colleges and universities will stay open.

Fifty state agencies, boards and commissions will close. Twenty-three others will follow alternative plans, although some of those involve closures.

All in all, this is an effective way to send the public a punitive message about cost savings in the public sector, where the pain of recession is also being felt. It is not a good way to demonstrate commitment to public service.