[NYAPRS Enews] WSJ: Cuomo Weighs More Than 10,000 Layoffs

[Harvey Rosenthal]

Cuomo Weighs More Than 10,000 Layoffs

By JACOB GERSHMAN
<http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=JACOB+GERSHMAN&bylinese
arch=true>   Wall Street Journal  January 20, 2011

Gov. Andrew Cuomo <http://topics.wsj.com/person/c/andrew-cuomo/5961>  is
weighing plans to lay off more than 10,000 government workers, rivaling
the number of pink slips handed out by his father a generation ago,
according to individuals familiar with budget discussions.

While Mr. Cuomo has not settled on a figure, the governor in recent days
has told lawmakers and other officials that he is looking at dismissing
10,000 to 12,000 workers, or more than 5% of the state's public work
force, the individuals say.

Not since the early 1990s, when Mario Cuomo was grappling with a
recession, has a New York governor threatened layoffs of that magnitude.

Talk of layoffs has escalated as Mr. Cuomo prepares to submit his budget
for the upcoming fiscal year. Since taking office on Jan. 1, after a
landslide victory in November, the former state attorney general has
enjoyed robust public support and has courted cooperation across a
spectrum of government players: labor leaders, upstate advocates,
real-estate developers and Wall Street bankers.

But his standing-particularly his effort to avoid a damaging clash with
public-employees unions-will face the most daunting test in just over a
week, when he lays out his plan to drag the state out of a $10 billion
budget hole, a deficit that encompasses 15% of projected state spending.

"It's obviously going to be an extreme amount of pain and suffering for
families across the state," said a Republican senator on Wednesday
evening. "The dark days of the '70s have returned."

A spokesman for the governor couldn't immediately be reached.

The last time a New York governor ordered so many layoffs was in 1990,
when Mario Cuomo vowed to chop 10% of the state's work force through
layoffs, attrition and early retirements. He proposed dismissing 10,000
workers, but the ultimate number of layoffs turned out to be thousands
fewer.

The number of full-time, salaried state employees is around 200,000,
about 15% smaller than 20 years ago, according to the state. About 93%
of the state work force is unionized.

Democrats are already leaning on Mr. Cuomo to relent on taxes. Mr. Cuomo
has promised not to raise taxes and has said he's opposed to extending a
temporary income hike on wealthier residents that's set to expire at the
end of the year. Assembly Democrats are urging him to keep the increase
in place for at least another year. Doing so, they say, would generate
more than $1 billion in extra revenue for the new fiscal year, which
begins in April, and help soften the blow of the budget ax.

Mr. Cuomo met privately with the Senate Republican majority conference
on Tuesday. Lawmakers said he told them they should brace for mass
layoffs but did not give a specific figure. They were later briefed that
the number could be around 12,000. Others familiar with budget talks
said Mr. Cuomo was considering at least 10,000 layoffs.

At the meeting with Republicans, Mr. Cuomo also warned that he would be
calling for billions of dollars in cuts to public schools, eliminating
spending growth and possibly reducing it below this year's level. And
he's also drawing up a health-care budget that could knock $2.1 billion
or hundreds of millions of dollars more out of the state's share of
projected Medicaid spending in the next fiscal year.

On Wednesday, state officials said his budget proposal numbers were
still moving.

Write to Jacob Gershman at jacob.gershman at wsj.com

 

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