5-percent state pay cut proposed

03-17-2009, 10:17 AM

http://www.floridacapitalnews.com/ap...NEWS/903170316

5-percent state pay cut proposed

State employees, who have not had a general pay raise in three years, could get hit with a 5-percent pay cut as Florida deals with an unprecedented fiscal crisis, a major Senate money manager said Monday.

Nothing is final and "everything is on the table," Senate budget chairman J.D. Alexander, R-Winter Haven, said.

A pay cut, if it comes, might be graduated to spare the lowest-earning state employees and more heavily hit the upper salary scales. Alexander's remarks met with predictable and heated opposition from representatives of state workers, on the eve of the annual lobbying day by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

AFSCME state president Jeanette Wynn said state employees "have been treated like dirt."

Alexander said reducing salaries is just one part of a multifaceted budget puzzle being evaluated. The Revenue Estimating Conference last Friday forecast a $1.1 billion shortage in the current year's already-reduced tax collections, followed by a $2.3 billion shortfall next fiscal year.

"I would hope it wouldn't be 10 percent," he said. "A 10-percent cut in pay, you know, many people have home mortgages to pay, car bills to pay and kids to educate. It's difficult to really contemplate a 10-percent reduction. I'm personally more comfortable with a 5-percent reduction on some."

Alexander, who chairs the Senate policy and Steering Committee on Ways and Means, said he was not sure if all employees should be included, or at which point in the pay scale a cut should kick in, or whether the percentage should be higher in the upper brackets. There is a bill pending to cut legislators' salaries 5 percent, for the second year in a row.

Lawmakers now make $30,336 a year.

"We would not have to do this if we would just close the tax loopholes and exemptions," said State Sen. Al Lawson, a Tallahassee Democrat. "State workers have not had a pay raise in three years and we've got state employees standing in line for food stamps. It's just an issue of fairness."

Lawson said the state has cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy by about $12 billion in the past 10 years.

"The Republicans need to stop scaring people with this economic crisis," he said. "It's amazing how the Republicans are refusing, with all the tax cuts given to the wealthiest people in Florida, to look at restoring some of those taxes. Instead, they are looking at pay cuts for the little guy."

Wynn, a retired state hospital attendant who worked 28 years for the state, said it was hard for her to remain calm when discussing the prospect of pay cuts.

Salaries and jobs will be a top issue in today's annual AFSCME lobbying day, she said.

"State employees have been treated like dirt. It just really angers me," she said. "All of us know what the economy is like but why don't they take back some of those tax breaks they gave big business and rich people."