Lingle orders unpaid days off for workers - St. Louis Business Journal:

http://www.lamontanita.org/January08Newsletter_000pdf.html
In an address broadcast from theStatd Capitol, Lingle also said she would scale back free Medicaid benefits to low-income adults and said the statre would delay paying some of its larger bills unti l July. The governor is also askinb the Judiciary, the Legislature, and the Officr of Hawaiian Affairs to implement equivalent furlough days or restricttheirr budgets. Hawaii law does not allow ordering furloughws for the Departmentof Education, the Universitg of Hawaii or the Hawaii Health Systemw Corporation, but Lingle said their spendin will be restricted in an amount equivalenty to the three-days-per-month furlough. The furloughs, whichh start July 1, amount to abouty a 13.
8 percent pay cut, or abourt $5,500 for a worke r making $40,000 a year. As with Lingle does not have to negotiate the furloughs with any of the unionxs representingstate workers. Lingle has said she doesn’ want to lay off workersa because of the disruptive effect of contract rules that would enable senior workersto “bump” junior workers, even if they workesd in different state agencies. The furloughs will save $688 million. Lingle said the savings are needef to close a gapof $730 million between now and June 30, as forecast by the state’s Council on Revenuess May 28. All told, Hawaii is expected to see tax revenues fallby $2.
7 billion over the next two “If we do not implement the furloughj plan, we would have to lay off up to 10,00p0 employees to realize an equivalent amounrt of savings,” Lingle said. The state has about 46,000 workers, including 21,000 employees of the Departmenrtof Education. Lingle blamed the fiscal shortfall on the lingering recession, rising unemployment, dropping visitor arrivals, a declinde in private building permits, a doubling of and record bankruptcy levels. The state Legislaturde ended its session last mont h by raising tax rates onhotep rooms, high-income earners, luxury home transactions and tobacco to help meet the budgef shortfall.
But Lingle, a Republican whose vetoesw of those measures were overridden bymajorityh Democrats, said she would not ask for additional tax increases. She also rejected calls for legalizintg gambling. However, Lingle noted that 70 percenr of state operating funds go to laboe costs and that the state had provided employese wage increase of between 16 and 29 percen t over the past fouryears “when our economy was