Governor Proposes Shifts & Reductions In State Jobs

Governor Phil Bredesen outlined more than 1,000 state employee layoffs in Tuesday night’s budget address.

Almost 500 of the funded positions are already vacant, so they go away with little pain. But another 760 of those jobs have people in them, and the governor wants to shift many of those workers to other continuing state jobs.

While aiming to save as many employees as possible, the governor says he has to slash non-productive positions.

“Of the 1,363 total layoffs, slightly over a thousand are for what I’d call good business reasons, bringing staffing ratios in line, for example, or closing an unneeded facility, and we should go ahead with these under any circumstances.”

The governor says he will use non-recurring money – funds saved from jobs already cut and programs already shut down, plus a little federal stimulus money not spent last year – to stretch layoffs out over the next six to twelve months.

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According to the budget document, Bredesen would cut 1,223 positions from the 2010-2011 budget.

In the speech last night he used the figure 1,365 layoffs. Administration staffs say it’s a moving target.

All those positions are in the state budget for this year – but 465 of them are already vacant. Bredesen says many of the people in those job slots have been reassigned to other state jobs.

Another 767 jobs that are filled by actual people will go away. But Bredesen says he will attempt to shift as many as possible to unfilled state positions that aren’t going away.

The governor says he is trying to avoid sending a lot of former state employees to the unemployment lines at one time.