Ares
20th January 2011, 12:40 PM
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is weighing plans to lay off more than 10,000 government workers, rivaling the number of pink slips handed out by his father a generation ago, according to individuals familiar with budget discussions.
While Mr. Cuomo has not settled on a figure, the governor in recent days has told lawmakers and other officials that he is looking at dismissing 10,000 to 12,000 workers, or more than 5% of the state's public work force, the individuals say.
Not since the early 1990s, when Mario Cuomo was grappling with a recession, has a New York governor threatened layoffs of that magnitude.
Talk of layoffs has escalated as Mr. Cuomo prepares to submit his budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Since taking office on Jan. 1, after a landslide victory in November, the former state attorney general has enjoyed robust public support and has courted cooperation across a spectrum of government players: labor leaders, upstate advocates, real-estate developers and Wall Street bankers.
But his standing—particularly his effort to avoid a damaging clash with public-employees unions—will face the most daunting test in just over a week, when he lays out his plan to drag the state out of a $10 billion budget hole, a deficit that encompasses 15% of projected state spending.
"It's obviously going to be an extreme amount of pain and suffering for families across the state," said a Republican senator on Wednesday evening. "The dark days of the '70s have returned."
A spokesman for the governor couldn't immediately be reached.
The last time a New York governor ordered so many layoffs was in 1990, when Mario Cuomo vowed to chop 10% of the state's work force through layoffs, attrition and early retirements. He proposed dismissing 10,000 workers, but the ultimate number of layoffs turned out to be thousands fewer.
The number of full-time, salaried state employees is around 200,000, about 15% smaller than 20 years ago, according to the state. About 93% of the state work force is unionized.
Democrats are already leaning on Mr. Cuomo to relent on taxes. Mr. Cuomo has promised not to raise taxes and has said he's opposed to extending a temporary income hike on wealthier residents that's set to expire at the end of the year. Assembly Democrats are urging him to keep the increase in place for at least another year. Doing so, they say, would generate more than $1 billion in extra revenue for the new fiscal year, which begins in April, and help soften the blow of the budget ax.
Mr. Cuomo met privately with the Senate Republican majority conference on Tuesday. Lawmakers said he told them they should brace for mass layoffs but did not give a specific figure. They were later briefed that the number could be around 12,000. Others familiar with budget talks said Mr. Cuomo was considering at least 10,000 layoffs.
At the meeting with Republicans, Mr. Cuomo also warned that he would be calling for billions of dollars in cuts to public schools, eliminating spending growth and possibly reducing it below this year's level. And he's also drawing up a health-care budget that could knock $2.1 billion or hundreds of millions of dollars more out of the state's share of projected Medicaid spending in the next fiscal year.
On Wednesday, state officials said his budget proposal numbers were still moving.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704590704576092801256486430.html
While Mr. Cuomo has not settled on a figure, the governor in recent days has told lawmakers and other officials that he is looking at dismissing 10,000 to 12,000 workers, or more than 5% of the state's public work force, the individuals say.
Not since the early 1990s, when Mario Cuomo was grappling with a recession, has a New York governor threatened layoffs of that magnitude.
Talk of layoffs has escalated as Mr. Cuomo prepares to submit his budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Since taking office on Jan. 1, after a landslide victory in November, the former state attorney general has enjoyed robust public support and has courted cooperation across a spectrum of government players: labor leaders, upstate advocates, real-estate developers and Wall Street bankers.
But his standing—particularly his effort to avoid a damaging clash with public-employees unions—will face the most daunting test in just over a week, when he lays out his plan to drag the state out of a $10 billion budget hole, a deficit that encompasses 15% of projected state spending.
"It's obviously going to be an extreme amount of pain and suffering for families across the state," said a Republican senator on Wednesday evening. "The dark days of the '70s have returned."
A spokesman for the governor couldn't immediately be reached.
The last time a New York governor ordered so many layoffs was in 1990, when Mario Cuomo vowed to chop 10% of the state's work force through layoffs, attrition and early retirements. He proposed dismissing 10,000 workers, but the ultimate number of layoffs turned out to be thousands fewer.
The number of full-time, salaried state employees is around 200,000, about 15% smaller than 20 years ago, according to the state. About 93% of the state work force is unionized.
Democrats are already leaning on Mr. Cuomo to relent on taxes. Mr. Cuomo has promised not to raise taxes and has said he's opposed to extending a temporary income hike on wealthier residents that's set to expire at the end of the year. Assembly Democrats are urging him to keep the increase in place for at least another year. Doing so, they say, would generate more than $1 billion in extra revenue for the new fiscal year, which begins in April, and help soften the blow of the budget ax.
Mr. Cuomo met privately with the Senate Republican majority conference on Tuesday. Lawmakers said he told them they should brace for mass layoffs but did not give a specific figure. They were later briefed that the number could be around 12,000. Others familiar with budget talks said Mr. Cuomo was considering at least 10,000 layoffs.
At the meeting with Republicans, Mr. Cuomo also warned that he would be calling for billions of dollars in cuts to public schools, eliminating spending growth and possibly reducing it below this year's level. And he's also drawing up a health-care budget that could knock $2.1 billion or hundreds of millions of dollars more out of the state's share of projected Medicaid spending in the next fiscal year.
On Wednesday, state officials said his budget proposal numbers were still moving.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704590704576092801256486430.html