AUGUSTA — With state budget talks suspended in disarray and lawmakers preoccupied with scheduled funeral services for a top negotiator, McKernan administration officials worked Sunday to prepare nearly 500 layoff notices for delivery to state workers Monday.
The New Year’s Eve pink slips were to be issued by Gov. John R. McKernan to offset a revenue shortfall through June projected at about $150 million, and were part of a $39 million package of personnel and program cutbacks he has proposed.
Still being weighed were sweeping departmental spending curbs and the issuance of an executive order mandating 12-day furloughs for virtually all state workers, which union leaders have pledged to fight.
Personalized letters formally announcing the initial round of layoffs were being drafted during the weekend, McKernan budget chief H. Sawin Millett said Sunday.
The Finance Department commissioner also said the furlough order, designed to save $11.5 million during the last half of the current fiscal year, was “ready to go,” but that talks with union representatives would continue.
The executive director of the Maine State Employees Association, Carl Leinonen, said union members were on notice to receive the pink slips.
“We were given a list of 488 names,” he said.
Of the looming furlough order, Leinonen reiterated the union’s opposition. “We don’t think they have the authority to unilaterally impose that … We will contest it,” he said.
Meanwhile, funeral services for Rep. Donald V. Carter were slated for Monday afternoon in his hometown of Winslow, following his death Saturday in a car crash. Carter was killed returning home from the State House after budget negotiations between lawmakers from both parties and the Republican administration broke off.
With budget talks suspended, the Appropriations Committee is scheduled to reconvene Wednesday, a day in advance of the return of the full Legislature and McKernan’s inauguration to a second term. The panel is expected to get a look at a draft of the administration’s revised plan for bridging the $150 million revenue gap, which is to include some version of McKernan’s proposed teacher retirement system refinancing that was soundly rejected by the House and Senate 10 days ago.
On Saturday, Democratic lawmakers put forth their own package of more than $63 million in budget-balancing initiatives, including a $17 million transfer of reserve funds, borrowing $15 million from the Maine Turnpike Authority and accelerated collections of sales tax receipts and employer payments of employee income-tax withholdings designed together to raise $20 million.
The McKernan administration offered to go along with the turnpike borrowing, and said it would support the tax withholding scheme for this fiscal year and the sales tax item for the next biennium, but rejected or withheld support from virtually all of the rest of the Democratic package.
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