State employees can expect more furloughs, maybe layoffs

State agencies can expect more furloughs and possibly layoffs into the upcoming fiscal year, legislative leaders said Monday.

House members will work this week to wrap up work on the spending plan for the year that starts July 1. The budget, which is expected to pass the Georgia House on Thursday, will continue major cutbacks for state agencies.

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Lawmakers vowed that the budget would not contain the usual millions of dollars for local community assistance grants, commonly called “pork” at the Capitol.

“It would be irresponsible of us to put local assistance grants in when we’re asking people to make all these cuts,” said House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin (R-Evans). “In this kind of economic climate, it’s just not a high priority.”

The extent of the cuts will become clearer in the next few days as Harbin’s committee finishes its work.

Gov. Sonny Perdue last week signed an $18.9 billion mid-year budget for the rest of fiscal 2009, which ends June 30. That budget included more than $2 billion in spending cuts. Many state agencies are slashing spending 10 percent or more.

So far, a relatively small number of the state’s 100,000 workers have been laid off. However, 25,000 state employees either have or will have to take days off without pay in coming months.

Harbin and House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) said that’s likely to continue into fiscal 2010.

Keen said, “I think furloughs are inevitable when you are spending such a high percentage of your funding on personnel.”

Harbin said layoffs at some agencies are likely too. Lawmakers won’t officially mandate layoffs or furloughs, but state agencies may have no choice when they are forced to figure out how to do their work with less money.

The fiscal 2010 budget will be propped up with at least $1.1 billion in federal stimulus funding. Perdue included that funding in his budget plan last month after he was forced to lower his estimate of how much state tax money will be coming in during the upcoming year.

House members hope to approve about $30 million for school nurses, something Perdue deleted from his budget proposal. They also want to fund the 10 percent salary bonuses received by more than 2,500 educators who have gained national board certification. The teachers are receiving the bonuses now, but Perdue’s budget plan cut out the money for fiscal 2010.