Culver sees equity in cut impacts

DES MOINES – Gov. Chet Culver said Monday he believed budget cuts have been spread equitably among state employees even though some were being required to take more unpaid days than others.

The equity issue was raised during an Iowa Executive Council meeting where five elected state officials voted unanimously to stop the deferred compensation monthly match of $75 by the state offered to noncontract executive branch employees from January through June of next year.

Two state employee unions agreed to take a similar concession earlier this year as part of an understanding with Gov. Chet Culver that also stipulated five unpaid days to protect against any additional layoffs this fiscal year. A third employees' union refused that arrangement and allowed bargaining unit members to face layoff notices instead.

Ed Holland of the state Department of Administrative Services said Monday's benefit suspension approved 5-0 by the Executive Council would save the state general fund about $1.3 million through next June 30.

During the council discussion, Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey noted that employees in his agency will have to take 12 unpaid days yet this fiscal year to meet Culver's 10 percent across-the-board cut while most noncontract employees are required to take seven paid days and unionized employees agreed to five unpaid days.

Culver said the measures were needed to achieve $565 million worth of savings within executive-branch departments to cover an unprecedented plunge in state revenues that threatened to knock the fiscal 2010 budget out of balance.

“I think the bottom line is that we're all sharing in the sacrifice,” Culver said in an interview after the meeting. “Literally everyone of the 20,000 employees in the executive branch is contributing to help us meet the goal of this across the board cut.”

The governor noted that he cut his yearly salary by 10 percent and the annual pay of department directors by a like amount. “I feel good about the fact that everyone is finding a way to contribute,” he said, otherwise state government faced hundreds of employee cuts beyond the 109 layoffs already ordered.