As a career federal government employee, I know there’s a clear distinction between federal employees and state/local government employees. Federal salaries, pensions, health care, etc., are covered by the national federal government budget and are protected. On the other hand, many states are already running massive deficits and simply can’t afford to maintain their current employment rolls, much less add new employees; same with many cities. There should be an immediate freeze in new hiring by such states and municipalities.
A thought:
Michigan is in dire straits. Lets Look at the Michigan State Police for a moment. The State Police Academy is about 24 weeks long. Troopers can retire after 25 years of service. The last hiring freeze occurred in the eary 1980’s (anyone remember the bumper stickers ‘Last one out of Michigan turn out the lights’?). When the State started hiring again in was 1983-85. Add 25 years to that number and you have 2008. MSP has to hire and run a new trooper school now in anticipation of 300-350 retirements over the next 24 months. It can be argued that the 90 people hired to attend the current school are new employees and in addition to current MSP manpower. But is it really? MSP is already down several hundred from their high in the mid 1970’s yet the population is up as is the crime rate.
Some hiring can be attributed to future planning for vacancies. If the State waited until the next 90 people to retire before beginning the hiring process for the academy they would be several hundred behind.
Personally, while I enjoy the assistance of MSP road officers I don’t really need them. It is their crime labs that smaller agencies cannot do without.