Lawmakers aim to blunt state worker pay cuts

By David McGrath Schwartz

Saturday, April 11, 2009 | 2 a.m.

State employees and teachers expect to take 3 percent pay cuts, likely through furloughs, in the upcoming state budget, according to the head of the state workers union and legislative sources.

A group of high-ranking lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans, senators and Assembly members — has been meeting behind closed doors to hash out which of Gov. Jim Gibbons’ proposed budget cuts they want to restore. Lawmakers have refused to release a list of the money they want to put back, but some numbers are coming to light.

Dennis Mallory, president of the state chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said he has heard from legislators that the cut in public employee pay will be 3 percent.

Sources close to the talks cautioned that negotiations are ongoing and depend on tax revenue projections from the Economic Forum, a panel of economic experts scheduled to meet May 1. Federal stimulus funding will also affect the size of the cuts.

Key Democrats had hoped to hold pay cuts at 2 percent, but the dimming economic outlook required additional cutting.

Still, the plan would lessen the hit to public employees. Gibbons’ budget called for a 6 percent pay reduction for state employees, higher education workers and teachers — a move that would save $435 million over the biennium. The governor also would have increased their health benefit and retiree insurance contributions and suspended pay raises based on years served.

The lawmakers’ plan for lesser cuts would require additional revenue. Legislators have not discussed publicly what taxes they would raise or establish to pay for their plans.

State workers, teachers and higher education employees have spent the past four months worrying that the state budget would be balanced, to a large extent, on their backs.

Mallory said he understands the need for cuts. Furloughs — time off without pay — were preferable to straight pay cuts, he said.

“If push came to shove, we’d prefer furloughs over a pay decrease,” he said.

As talks have proceeded, tensions have arisen among teachers and state and university employees.

Lynn Warne, president of the Nevada State Education Association, said she would oppose cuts for teachers and education. She noted that Nevada’s university professors are the 10th best paid in the nation.

“Shared sacrifice is the catchphrase of this session,” she said. “Well, in good times, the state’s per pupil (K-12) education funding was nearly last. Now in bad times, we’re going to cut more? No, I think we’ve been sharing enough of the sacrifice.”

Nevada Faculty Alliance lobbyist Jim Richardson said higher education advocates “understand everyone will be asked to sacrifice. That said, the budget shouldn’t be balanced on the backs of state workers.”

Gibbons’ budget would reduce higher education funding by 37 percent. How much of that is restored depends largely on whether the federal government waives a requirement that funding be maintained at 2006 levels to receive stimulus dollars.

Higher education advocates initially opposed the state’s application for the waiver.

“The unwillingness to support funding at the (2006) level puzzles me and disturbs me,” Richardson said.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley said tension among the groups is “inevitable.”

“I understand their frustration,” she said. “When we have 37 percent reduction in revenue and education, health and human services and public safety are 93 percent of our budget, it’s hard to not impact those areas.”

It’s unclear how pay cuts would be carried out.

The state allocates the money, but local school districts negotiate contracts with teachers unions.

There is disagreement on whether higher education salaries could be cut. It’s a decision likely to be made by the Board of Regents.

Some think the Legislature could indicate its intent to cut teacher and university pay by 3 percent and leave the decision on how to carry that out to the Board of Regents and local school districts.