Furlough: Six Fewer Work Days
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A Combo of Closure and Furlough Days
The six days include three common days during which state offices will be closed that are adjacent to existing state holiday weekends – Friday, Sept. 3 (Labor Day weekend); Friday, Nov. 12 (Veterans Day weekend); and Friday, May 27, 2011 (Memorial Day weekend). The closure of state offices for the three common days will serve to increase operational savings by decreasing energy and other operational costs. In addition, employees will be furloughed for one day in each of the months of October, March and June. Agencies will schedule employees to be off work in a manner that minimizes the impact to the public. Agencies also will submit plans to the secretary of the Personnel Cabinet to describe how they will implement the furlough days that are non-designated.
Several state agencies that operate 24-hour/7 day-a-week facilities, including mental health and correctional facilities and law enforcement functions, may submit plans requesting additional flexibility on how to implement the furloughs.
Furloughs will achieve savings and prevent many layoffs As a key component to solving a $1.5 billion shortfall, the 2010-12 biennial budget passed by the General Assembly requires that the state achieve $131 million in expenditure reductions in FY 11 and $169 million in FY 12, on top of 3.5 percent cuts and 4.5 percent cuts for most state agencies, respectively. The six days outlined by Jackson will achieve a savings of approximately $24 million for the first year of the biennium.
Jackson also noted that, based on an average full-time salary of $58,066 including fringe benefits, the six-day furlough plan will prevent 413 state employees from being laid off.
Non-merit and Merit Employees Included
Both non-merit employees and merit system employees, full-time and part-time, including the governor and all cabinet secretaries, regardless of salary, will be furloughed the same number of days, as will contract workers.
In addition to furloughing non-merit system employees, the administration will reduce the number of non-merit system employees in order to achieve further savings; decisions about non-merit system employee reductions are still under discussion. The governor, all cabinet secretaries and members of the governor’s senior staff have already taken and continue to take voluntary 10 percent pay reductions as part of cost-savings measures in balancing the budget.
Other States’ Actions
Facing a global recession, many states have furloughed or proposed to furlough state employees:
• California has furloughed employees 46 days since February 2009
• Hawaii has proposed furloughing employees 42 days
• Maine and Washington are furloughing employees.
Communicating in Kentucky
E-mails were sent to both state employees as well as executive branch cabinet secretaries to inform them of the plan. State employees who have further questions about the implementation of the plan can visit http://personnel.ky.gov/furlough to find frequently asked questions and answers, and are encouraged to speak with their agency’s human resources administrator.
Next steps
Following the filing of the administrative regulation, state cabinets will propose implementation plans to Jackson. The Personnel Cabinet then will issue suggestions to state agencies for the implementation of the plans.