Govt furloughs to begin soon

The administration is giving government departments heads until the end of the week to prepare a list of employees that could be furloughed.

Once the lists are prepared, the affected employees will be given a 30-day notice, Esther Fleming, the governor’s special assistant for administration, said yesterday.

Although she is not able to estimate how many people will lose their jobs, she said the cuts would focus on non-essential positions.

The administration is calculating the impact of the new $156.76 million Fiscal Year 2009 budget law and expects furloughs will need to take place. Last week, the Legislature successfully overrode Gov. Benigno Fitial’s veto. After the override, Finance Secretary Eloy Inos said the new budget would force possibly thousands of layoffs or could shut the government down as early as July.

Civil service employees will not be affected, Fleming said. Rather employees within the Governor’s Office and the various mayors’ offices will feel the impact.

“Those are the ones that will be heavily affected,” she added. She has yet to notify the Legislature and Judiciary branches, although they will need to make the same necessary furloughs.

Fleming said her office has been discussing with Fitial and Inos the possibility that once the budget ceiling is reached, departments might have to shut down.

“There’s that greater possibility that they will close, or we will limit the services. It’s not business as usual as we would like it to be,” Fleming said.

She has asked all department secretaries to look at the positions that are needed to keep offices open at a bare minimum.

“We realize it will not be business as usual, but if we can keep some sort of service open to the community, we will,” she added.

The priority will be sustaining the Department of Public Health, the Public School System, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Public Safety.

The administration has been pushing the Legislature to pass austerity measures, saying that without them the government will continue to overspend. In February, Rep. Victor Hocog introduced a bill prepared by the administration to enact austerity Fridays and unpaid holidays. The measure was expected to save $8 million to $9 million, but several of the proposed dates have passed and another one comes up tomorrow. The bill could be discussed in the House of Representatives next week.

Fleming said they are still trying to calculate how much money reducing the retirement benefit from 18 to 11 percent will save. That was one of the provisions included in the budget law that the administration had called for.

But the austerity measures are still needed, she said.

“That would have really helped us a lot on top of bringing down the retirement benefit,” she said.

“We’re going to be seeking the same thing in 2010,” she added.