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But an administration
official said Wednesday that even with a budget deficit of $11
billion or more, the Democrat achieved important victories --
avoiding mass layoffs, costly litigation and setting a "tone" for
future cooperation. The American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees agreed to delay portions of wage increases
during the next year and ask members to take voluntary unpaid
furloughs in exchange for avoiding most of the 2,600 layoffs Quinn
sought last summer.
The layoffs were part of $1 billion in budget cuts Quinn
announced in June, along with requiring all employees to take 12
unpaid furlough days to save $310 million.
But that was after Quinn sought wage concessions and voluntary
furloughs from AFSCME, budget director David Vaught said.
"The governor believes we've achieved our basic objective to try
to achieve savings through shared sacrifice without creating the
more disruptive aspect of layoffs," Vaught said.
AFSCME filed a lawsuit over the layoffs and a judge stopped them
but told both sides to work out an agreement, which they did on
Tuesday.
"It protects the essential public services our members provide,"
AFSCME Executive Director Henry Bayer said in a statement. "Illinois
families need those services more than ever in this deep recession."
The union's 40,000 members are scheduled to get two pay increases
totaling 4 percent during the next year, but will give up half of
that. However, what they forgo now will be due in June 2011, and
earlier if the state generates new revenue, such as a tax increase.
That will save $41 million, the budget office says.
The union will urge members to take up to 10 voluntary furlough
days, saving an estimated $77 million. Restructuring of group
insurance will save another $70 million.
About 150 layoffs remain scheduled in various agencies outside
the Corrections Department. That savings takes the total over $200
million.
Vaught acknowledged that with a deficit of $11 billion or more,
budget-cutting of this size seems inadequate.
But every bit helps "and you also set a tone of taking
unprecedented steps, the tone of shared sacrifice, the tone of
'everybody's in this,'" he said.
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Another 700 jobs remain in question as the administration continues
its push to close some state facilities, notably the Howe
Developmental Center in Tinley Park and the mostly unused Thomson
Correctional Center, which Quinn wants to sell to the federal
government to house terrorist suspects.
But most employees facing layoffs have the right to fill
vacancies in other areas.
Quinn has met most of the other targets in the $1 billion in
savings he announced in June, according to Vaught.
They include reducing social service grants by $250 million and
education spending by $137 million, shy of the $175 million he
sought there.
But the governor was shooting for $140 million in health
insurance and Medicaid savings; Vaught said with a Medicaid
managed-care program, savings will be over $200 million, although
not all before the June 30 end of this fiscal year.
Quinn hoped to reserve $100 million, but emergency spending
brought that total down to $80 million, Vaught said. Negotiations
continue with other statewide officials to cut $25 million from
their budgets, he said.
[Associated Press;
By JOHN O'CONNOR]
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
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