Stuck with salary-sapping furloughs
Most days of the week, the lobby of Vancouver’s Columbia River Community Services Office bustles with people waiting to be seen. The office will be closed Tuesday, the third furlough day in a series of 10 mandatory unpaid days off for 35,000 state workers.
Monday, September 6, 2010
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State worker Patricia Loving will try to conserve money during her mandated furlough day on Tuesday.
Loving, who works for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services in Vancouver, is one of 35,000 state workers ordered to take 10 days off without pay as part of an effort to balance the state budget. Furloughs are also increasingly popular in private industry, where they’re seen as an alternative to layoffs at penny-pinched businesses.
But giving employees less work and less pay ultimately spreads the pain.
Loving, a single head of her household, said her personal budget was already tight when state legislators passed the law in January. The furloughs are designed to shave $70 million off the state’s 2010-2011 budget to help plug a $12 billion hole. The law requires the 10-day closure of 50 state agencies, although it does not include government agencies dealing with public safety such as State Troopers.
Tuesday is Loving’s third scheduled furlough day in a 12-month period. She estimates that in all, the furloughs will cut about 5 percent of her annual income.
“I try not to spend any money and make it an even bigger loss,” said Loving, a financial services specialist for DSHS. “For most of us, it’s a substantial loss of money for groceries and gas.”
While the furlough plan can be difficult for state workers and the patrons they serve, business advocates see no way around the measure, said Don Brunell, president of the 4,500-member Association of Washington Business.
“It’s unfortunate that the state has the same problem the private sector has had,” Brunell said. “But if you run out of money, you have to find things to do about it. Right now, we’re in survival mode.”
State workers say the furloughs have affected employee morale and created resentment as they struggle to catch up with the same workload in less time.
“It makes you end up feeling like they don’t consider us seriously. They don’t respect us,” said Marty Harris, a social worker at the Vancouver’s Columbia River Community Services office, a division of DSHS.
Harris said he is more concerned about the effect of furlough days on the DSHS clients.
Tuesday’s furlough was tacked onto a holiday weekend, creating a four-day closure for the DSHS office, which serves Clark County’s most desperate population, Harris said.
The agency issues food stamps, provides referrals for medical, pregnancy and child care, and provides general assistance for the unemployed and for people with physical and mental health issues. DSHS case workers also deal with victims of domestic violence and assess people for drug and alcohol treatment.
“It’s hard to think we’re not essential to state services,” Harris said.
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