Furlough Bill Passes Senate

Friday the Senate passed SB 6503 directing agencies to save about $70 million through mandatory or voluntary furloughs.

Jason Mercier has a good post on the bill, in which he points out additional savings possible if state employees' share of their health insurance costs went from the current 12 percent to 20 percent. 

The AP story on the furlough bill, which public employee unions opposed, describes it this way:

Under the measure, if the agencies don't present a plan on how they'll make the cuts, they will have to shut down for one day a month for 13 months. Originally, lawmakers were looking at making government shut down for a total of 16 days, without the flexibility of letting agencies find other ways of cutting payroll costs.

"The underlying premise of this bill is that it is better to have less of a job than no job," said Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Medina.

With statewide unemployment now hitting 9.5 percent, you'd think most people would agree. The real problem with the bill is that it's a temporary response to an enduring condition, as Sen. Joe Zarelli pointed out.

"Nothing about our situation is temporary," said Sen. Joseph Zarelli, R-Ridgefield. "Furloughs, temporary layoffs, these things are not going to solve anything. We cannot simply look at temporary ways until somehow we win the lottery. It's not going to happen."

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that there's still a lot of denial in the state capital.