Posted on 08/10/2003 12:25:17 PM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
AUSTIN - The "Blue Screen of Death" -- that's what some state employees called the blank computer screen that served as the first notice that they were no longer state employees.
"They were sitting there working at their computers, and then -- boom -- the network people locked them out," said Marcus Chase, a producer of educational videos who was one of about 150 Texas Education Agency employees to get a pink slip in recent weeks. "It was disrespectful how it went down."
An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 state workers have lost their jobs or will lose them soon as a result of steep budget cuts and government reorganization plans adopted during the regular legislative session, which ended June 2. Texas has the equivalent of about 270,000 full-time employees, according to the state auditor's office.
The layoffs are the most sweeping in recent history for state government and will affect top-rung managers to low-level clerical workers throughout Texas. They will also lead to the reduction or elimination of some services.
The exact number of layoffs remains uncertain, although the state's recently adopted budget will eliminate more than 4,000 positions beginning Sept. 1. A mandated reorganization of health and human-services agencies could eliminate thousands more in the coming months and years -- although those numbers won't be known until that reorganization is complete.
"It's a very significant number -- and putting these layoffs into effect is a lot more difficult than just reaching a decision around the budget table," said Ed Sills, a spokesman for the Texas AFL-CIO.
In the short term, health and human-services agencies will lose 3,200 positions, according to one official estimate. Employees of the prison system, the Texas Education Agency and other agencies are also losing their jobs.
Chase said his division at the Texas Education Agency got the bad news during a surprise meeting. He had kind words for supervisors -- "I didn't take it personally," he insists -- although he said some co-workers wept openly.
His supervisor "came in and handed a packet to everybody and said, 'I have a list, and all of y'all are on the list,' " he recalled. "She said, 'I can't believe that I have to do this. This is the hardest thing that I have had to do in my life.' "
State agencies are scrambling to complete the painful process before the fiscal year begins Sept. 1. Lawmakers sliced nearly $10 billion from the state's two-year budget while adopting legislation to encourage employees to retire promptly when eligible.
An official at the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services predicted 212 fewer positions as a result of budget cuts and the reorganization; the University of Texas could lose up to 500 jobs, according to one published report; and the Texas Railroad Commission has had a net reduction of 45 jobs.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice also took a big hit: It laid off 400 employees last month and should eventually trim about 1,500 from its work force of 40,000.
The layoffs will not include correctional officers or probation officers, a department spokesman said. Targeted positions include substance-abuse counselors, mailroom clerks, chaplains and recreation specialists.
Sills, the AFL-CIO spokesman, said the department has also announced plans to stop paying cash for overtime. "That's a terrible way to deal with a shortage of workers. It makes it worse for people who are already there and less attractive for the people who might consider going there," he said.
Eva De Luna, a budget analyst for the liberal Center for Public Policy Priorities, said the combination of new reductions and previous cuts in the state's health and human-services agencies could end up siphoning away money at the local level.
That's because workers there process Medicaid, food stamps and other public assistance. With less personnel come longer lines, she said.
"And people who need the services can't stand in line, because they can't stay away from work -- so they don't get the services," she said.
"Food stamps amounts to $200 a month for a family of three," she added. "If [a potential recipient] runs out of money for food, they have to go down to the local food bank. The food bank turns around and asks the grocery store to donate the food.
"So instead of getting money into the local grocery stores [from food stamps], we're taking money away from them. It becomes really messed up when you don't do the work to process these services."
However, Mike Jones, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Human Services, said the nearly 200 positions that will be eliminated because of budget cuts generally come from the state headquarters in Austin and a few regional offices.
He acknowledged that the agency has lost nearly 4,000 positions in the past five years. And despite losing more positions with the latest budget cuts, the agency will not need to issue pink slips because of a previous hiring freeze, he said.
"A few may get reassigned to other existing positions, but nobody will get laid off," Jones said.
Although the Texas Railroad Commission has lost 45 positions, it has laid off fewer than 10 people because some workers took advantage of a new retirement deal and other positions have been left vacant, a spokeswoman said.
Nonetheless, work reductions there could have unforeseen consequences. Cuts at the Railroad Commission could increase legal costs to municipalities, said Betsy Todd, an attorney who has represented Fort Worth and other communities in gas-rate cases before the commission.
She said attorneys for both the Railroad Commission and the municipalities mount cases to ensure that gas companies charge fair rates. But with less staff at the commission, municipalities could end up shouldering more of the work, she said.
Jeoff Wool, director of public information for the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services, said the agency started eliminating positions in June. He said the Legislature provided more funding for workers in the Child Protective Services divisions -- but not any more than what is needed to keep up with increased demand.
"The caseloads are not getting any smaller ... [and] it doesn't move us further in terms of services that we have provided," he said.
At the Texas Education Agency, 196 employees were laid off, transferred or given retirement deals over the past month, said agency spokeswoman Debbie Graves Ratcliffe. She said the agency expects a reduction of 50 more workers before Sept. 1 and possibly more in the coming fiscal year because of a planned agency reorganization.
She said budget writers cut 15 percent of the agency's staff and 25 percent of its budget. "We have to cut printing, postage and travel by 50 percent," she said. "I lost a fourth of my staff, our entire graphics department.
"People were really nervous prior to Friday, when the big layoffs came -- they were in shock," she said.
The reduced state budget also curtailed benefits for many Texans who rely on Medicaid for home-care assistance and will trim the rolls of the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage for youngsters in low-income families, by about 120,000.
One state employee said the force reductions also hurt on a personal level.
"We had friends that were laid off," said the Austin-based worker, who asked not to be named because she feared becoming a layoff target herself.
"I miss working with people that I had worked with every day, and I still think about them all the time," she said. "The fabric of your daily life gets a little bit unraveled when this happens."
Now I will agree that the cut in prison substance abuse counselors is probably short-sighted, with likely higher long-term costs, but otherwise most of these cuts were overdue. And now they are being implemented. No thanks to the bitter utopians that sat at home because their GOP primary winner didn't agree 101% with every one of their issues. This happened BECAUSE the other voters put the GOP in charge of both houses(by healthy margins) and the governor's chair. More good to come...
Thanks for admitting it. It's a crock.
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