State Employees Say Reduce Bonus To Save Jobs, Governor Says No

Tennessee state employees asked Governor Phil Bredesen Tuesday to trim their bonus in his recommended budget as a way to save jobs. Bredesen said no.

In the budget Bredesen presented to the state legislature this month, he proposed a three-percent bonus for state employees, who haven’t had a raise since 2007. In a question and answer session with the governor, the Tennessee State Employee Association’s Robert O’Connell asked if Bredesen would alter the bonus proposal.

“Would you consider rolling back that three percent proposed bonus to two percent, and not laying off anyone?”

Bredesen shook his head. He says the one thousand layoffs in his recommended budget, while not easy, are justified for business reasons.

“There’s a lot of things that I do not like in this budget. It has gone way beyond the usual, ‘We need to trim a little here and get rid of some empty positions,’ or something like that, into a number of things that really affect people.”

Bredesen says the budget he filed with state lawmakers was his best attempt to deal with tight times. but he says he won’t be surprised if lawmakers put their own spin on it.

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Bredesen told the meeting of TSEA leaders – meeting for “lobbying day” on the Hill – that the current budget proposal is a matter of playing the hand he was dealt.

“I’ve tried to do, in submitting a …budget, the best job I could of picking what were the most important things. Other people could feel differently about that. I certainly expect the legislature to put their own imprint on this budget, in that regard.”

The governor says his final budget is aimed more at preserving funding possibilities for the next governor than defending any of his own program.

“But this is not a budget where I have some initiative that I need to preserve at all costs. This is a budget in which we’re trying to get through a very tough time and make an intelligent set of decisions about what we do.”

When a state employee asked about the possibility of an income tax to even out the revenue flow, the governor replied with a smile….

“It’s been proposed, I guess, probably three times. And I would say shot down… the last time it was not only shot down, it was shot down, buried, cut into small pieces.”

In any case, Bredesen says, states that have income taxes are no better off in the current economy than Tennessee.

O’Connell, the TSEA official, had done the math on the bonus cutback. His offer, with dollar marks:

“However if you would consider a rollback of that three percent bonus to only two percent, the $165 million that the three percent bonus costs, one third of that, the $55 million, would fund for a year all of the 1,049 layoffs that are proposed. And a year from now may be a better day.”

Later, talking to reporters, Bredesen further explained why he would rather have the layoffs than fund the positions for another year.

“If there’s a good thing about this kind of a slowdown, one of the things is, it gets people focused on a lot of things that maybe ought to be done anyway. When you have a facility, when you have beds that are staffed but not occupied, maybe out of respect for the taxpayers and out of respect for other things that people depend on in state government, you oughta not staff those beds.”

Many of the one-thousand layoffs in the budget come from health care units that aren’t filled up, the governor says, including phasing out the old Clover Bottom mental health institution in Nashville.

“A number of them would be in field where I think it’s relatively easy to get a new job. I mean if you’re a hospital worker, for example, the market’s a lot better for them than it is for PR consultants, or something like that.”

Some 400 proposed layoffs are positions deemed necessary – for at least two more years.

“Now in the case of the 400 people who are employed, and the two-year buy-in, what I’m saying is, I think that over the course of two years, a lot of those people may…look for other opportunities in state government. And over the course of two years, there will be enough turnover and enough vacancies that the prospects of them moving somewhere else as opposed to being laid off at the end of that time are really very good.”

Bredesen says requiring layoffs versus using reserves to keep jobs filled wasn’t a black and white decision,.

“It’s a judgment call, and it’s ideological. I found a spot where I was comfortable. As I say, I would love to be in a position where none of this ever had to happen or you had enough time to let people find jobs comfortably in other ways.”