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Economy
RI gov to shut down state government for 12 days
2009-08-26
Rhode Island will shut down its state government for 12 days and hopes to trim millions of dollars in funding for local governments under a plan Gov. Don Carcieri outlined Monday to balance a budget hammered by surging unemployment and plummeting tax revenue.

The shutdown will force 81 percent of the roughly 13,550-member state work force, excluding its college system, to stay home a dozen days without pay before the start of the new fiscal year in July.

The closures come as the worst recession in decades has eliminated hundreds of millions of dollars in tax collections and pushed unemployment to 12.7 percent, the second-highest jobless rate in the nation behind Michigan.

Carcieri predicted the state's fiscal future could grow even bleaker. "There are going to be inconveniences for the public, and there are going to be sacrifices, as I said, for state employees," Carcieri said at a Statehouse news conference. "These steps right now are unavoidable if the state is to live within its budget, live within its means."
Posted by:Fred

#7  Nobody can stop y'all from thinking, James, not even yourselves. Nor jotting those thoughts down. (I saw my father trying when he was supposed to be asleep at night. It might have been easier had he been in some way athletic.) Whoever is warning you is covering himself against lawsuits for lost pay when y'all think about your projects anyway.
Posted by: trailing wife   2009-08-26 22:17  

#6  Work still needs to be done, but we've been warned (U. Wisconsin) not to dream of working on furlough days no matter what happens. The consequences weren't specified. (Fermilab warned employees not to even look at their email on those days.)
We're getting a pay cut in lieu of layoffs. It seems more honest just to say so instead of dinking around with "furlough days," but I suppose they needed some fancy nonsense to get around labor contracts.
Posted by: James   2009-08-26 17:29  

#5  But the work still needs to be done. Some will be working as hard on their off days as they do when permitted into their offices, only unpaid. One hopes there will be some quiet reprioritization.

Mr. Wife had an experience like that while on assignment in Germany. Like any good American manager, he'd been going in on weekends to get his paperwork caught up. After about six months of this behaviour, he got a letter telling him that if he did not cease and desist he would be called before a Works Council for reprimand -- his contract called for 40 hours per week, and he was therefore not permitted to work more. But the work nonetheless had to be gotten done, so he brought it home. In Belgium there were no such issues.
Posted by: trailing wife   2009-08-26 15:49  

#4  Last week in Maryland a Federal judge declared a very similar program in violation of labor contracts, and has ordered Prince George's County to pay out $17 million on lost wages to the affected unionized employees. Link here.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2009-08-26 15:05  

#3  That's 1 out of very 20 work days. Beats being laid off like the taxpaying schmoes.
Posted by: ed   2009-08-26 13:53  

#2  Small loss.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839   2009-08-26 13:04  

#1  ..excluding its college system,

It's time for a lot of states to reevaluate their college systems. How much redundancy is in the system? How many do they actually graduate that stay around to support the local/state economy? For state institutions it time to move back to A&Ms. That use to be agricultural and mechanical, but in today's terms it would be application and medical. Time for expensive tracks with little or no job employment opportunities be given up to private schools. It's time to end programs and studies that do not support those who are taxed/stuck with supporting them.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-08-26 07:36  

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