GOP Proposes Cutting Thousands Of State Jobs
ST. PAUL (WCCO) -- Majority Republicans at the Minnesota Capitol have proposed a plan they call the 15-15 -- a simple name for a very big job.
They want to cut 15 percent of Minnesota's state workforce by 2015.
Minnesota has 35,000 state workers and a 15 percent cut could mean losses of 5250 jobs. The bill, HF4, does not specify where the cuts will be.
But it could affect thousands of workers from janitors to jailers; state employees drive the snowplows, staff the parks, guard the prisons, care for patients and police the roads.
The bill offers early retirement to a specified number of older workers, but if the 15 percent threshold isn't met, it directs furloughs, layoffs and a pay freeze to reach the goal.
"The concept here is to transition state workers from thinking of themselves as bargaining units," said the bill's author, Rep. Keith Downey, (R) Edina. "And start thinking of themselves instead as value-added service providers for the state."
Reducing the number of state employees is the latest effort by the new Republican Majority to aggressively cut government costs.
Also this week, the Republican House and Senate are hearing bills to cut funding to local governments, public universities and recipients of human services.
GOP leaders say streamlining government is what they were elected to do and they challenged
Democrats to come up with a better idea to ease the state's crushing $6.2 billion deficit.
"What are you gonna do?" asked the House Majority Leader, Rep. Matt Dean (R) Stillwater. "If you're really gonna get a hold of this thing, what are you gonna do?"
But Democrats say cutting all those workers means cutting state services, which the bill does not define. Not to mention, they say, cutting Main Street paychecks.
"Given that hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans are already unemployed or underemployed, this plan is nothing less than economic suicide," said Rep. Debra Hilstrom (DFL) Brooklyn Center.
Leaders for the state's largest public workers union, AFSCME Council 6, said they are open to cutbacks. In fact, they've taken pay freezes four of the last eight years.
But one union leader told us: "Republicans are doing it TO us. Gov. Dayton is doing it WITH us."
