State & Local Government Spending Report
Groups blast Congress over pay raise
Lawmaker, union stand behind 4.1 percent pay raise
For many federal workers, job just a paycheck
Employee whose office let 9-11 hijackers in U.S. gets bonus
"The State Department official who was forced to retire because her office allowed most of the September 11 hijackers into the United States has recently won an "outstanding performance" award of $15,000... The congressional General Accounting Office said in a report this week that 13 of the 19 hijackers were given visas without ever seeing a U.S. consular official...Last summer, reports of lax visa rules for Saudis — who could apply for visas over the Internet with no questions asked — prompted Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to force Miss Ryan to retire...Thomas Furey, who was consul-general in the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and helped establish the "Visa Express," also received a bonus....[State Department spokesman Richard] Boucher, when asked whether the bonus was appropriate, accused the reporter of "attacking friends of mine, people who dedicate their lives to their government and their country — my friends." Mr. Boucher, who also received a bonus, refused to comment on the individual merits of each bonus. The awards list was compiled this summer by the 2002 Senior Foreign Service Selection Board. The State Department official would not describe the criteria on which the awards were made. "
The Aging Government Workforce: An Impending Challenge for State Governments
Contact: Jeff Goldings
Source
Full Report
Employment & Social Services Policy Studies
As the country's population ages in the coming years, all employers will need to address the replacement of growing numbers of retiring workers. A new report, The Aging Government Workforce, published by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, asserts that this problem will be especially acute for federal, state, and local governments. Government workforces are usually older than the private sector workforce, and the proportion of workers age 45 and over has been increasing faster in the government workforce than in the private sector.
The looming government worker retirement crunch poses a host of human resource and financial challenges for states. The report suggests that state governments will soon encounter fierce competition with the private sector and with the federal and local governments for younger "knowledge workers" (e.g., health care workers, legal professionals, natural scientists, engineers, educators, and managers). This will pose a great challenge as a substantial percentage of older knowledge workers currently employed in the public sector(50 percent) and the private sector (35 percent) retire, in accelerating numbers, over the coming years.
The report statistics also illustrate that state governments will likely not be as adversely affected by the looming retirement crunch as will the federal government or local governments. Overall, older workers (age 45 and over) total 43.6 percent of the state workforce, compared to 50.3 percent of federal workers and 46.3 percent of local government workers.
The effect of worker retirement will impact U.S. Census regions differently as well. The statistics illustrate that the Middle Atlantic region is likely to encounter a more acute state government workforce retirement crunch than any other region, while the impact of this retirement crunch will be least felt by state governments in the Mountain West.