Editorials - 02/01/01

Belt-tightening penalizes public, state employees

In the initial days of his administration, Gov. Mike Easley has taken seemingly the only course available to him to begin to address the budget crisis. In his first major order, he imposed a freeze on new hires, new purchases, non-essential travel and new building projects. Critical positions such as correctional officers and patient care personnel are exempt as are teaching positions in the public schools, universities and community colleges.

In times of crisis, state employees have always come through. They've done so without adjustments to their salaries to compensate for added duties and without promotional opportunities for picking up the slack.

As we commence with the final five months of the current fiscal year, we are told that a $500 million revenue shortfall must be erased and that state agencies face "belt-tightening" expectations that will continue into the next fiscal year.

For state employees, the new millennium is taking up where the '90s left off. That decade included belt tightening, too, along with average salary increases that barely matched inflation. There was no salary increase at all in 1991.

State employees are interpreting this year's all too familiar message as follows: A pay raise is doubtful; you're going to be paying more for health care; your workload will increase. This is no way for the state to address its most valuable resource ­ its people.

The General Assembly enacted legislation in 1993 creating a pay plan intended to recruit, retain and reward the best and brightest state employees. But the pay plan has never been truly funded, thus rendering it ineffective. This year it would take an appropriation of 7.5 percent to fully fund the plan, which includes a cost-of-living adjustment tied to inflation.

State employee salaries have also lost roughly 5 percent to inflation over the last six years and recouping these losses would increase the required appropriation to 12.5 percent. While this request may seem unusually large, salary increases for state employees lag 15 percent behind the marketplace. Furthermore, when it comes to pay, the state's workforce hasn't fared well in years of $1 billion budget surpluses.

For years, state agencies have operated on bare bones budget. How much more can they tighten their belts? One more notch could sap the life from some of them. And then the real loser becomes the public that, knowingly or not, depends on government in more ways than it is aware.

Scaled-down staffs do not necessarily equate to efficiency; indeed, often it is the opposite. Efficiency results from a workforce that is adequately compensated, wherein opportunities exisxt for advancement and turnover is low.

The U.S. Census Bureau named our state one of the 10 fastest-growing in the nation. The demand for better highways, safer streets and communities, a cleaner environment, improved care to the disadvantaged and elderly, and a host of other public services grows by the day. Further eroding the ability of state agencies and employees to carry out these services is clearly contrary to the public interest.

­ Dana S. Cope, executive director, State Employees Association of N.C.

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