In effort to shore up state budget, sacrifices from Nebraska employees not all the same

Hundreds of Neb. workers won’t take furloughs

LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska government workers won’t all be forced to stay home, unpaid, to help ease budget pressures that threaten to cause layoffs and reductions in state services.

While roughly 11,000 union workers who earlier declined a pay freeze requested by Gov. Dave Heineman will be forced to take two furlough days under orders he issued about two weeks ago, two state departments he doesn’t directly control recently decided against furloughs for their union employees.

Those more than 900 employees, who are in the Department of Education and State College System, will also get raises, unlike most nonunion employees across all sectors of state government.

Heineman couldn’t order employees in the two agencies to take furlough days like he could in other departments because the two agencies have some autonomy under the state Constitution.

While not explicitly criticizing the decisions by the two departments, Heineman suggested that the decision by the Department of Education — which employs more than 400 of the workers not being required to take furlough days — be reconsidered.

Department management decided not to order furloughs; Heineman wants the department’s board, the State Board of Education, to vote on the matter.

“The governor’s opinion is that this is an issue of equity and fairness that deserves to be reviewed and acted upon by the elected board at their next meeting,” Jen Rae Hein, Heineman’s spokeswoman, said about the Department of Education. “The governor hopes the state board … will follow his lead.”

Nebraska Education Commissioner Roger Breed, who heads the education department, said the board might discuss the furlough issue at its next meeting in August, but that any vote to reverse or oppose the decision wouldn’t happen until September.

Breed said one of the main reasons the department decided against furloughs was because it wouldn’t save much state money — about $40,000 — because the department gets most of its money from the federal government.

“We’re mostly federally funded, well over 70 percent, so the impact would be minimal,” Breed said.

Union members will get a 2.5 percent raise this fiscal year, which began July 1, as will nonunion members.

The cost of those raises, he said, will be offset by savings such as not giving raises to top administrators, including himself.

Heineman declined to comment through his spokeswoman on the decision by the State College System, which oversees Chadron, Peru and Wayne State Colleges, to not order furloughs.

College support staff who belong to the large state union that represents most of the 11,000 employees who will have to take furlough days will receive a pay increase of about 3 percent this year.

Another union that represents professional staff will get a 3.5 percent raise, and nonunion administrators will get the same percentage bump in pay. The faculty union’s request for a combined, 11 percent pay hike for last fiscal year and the current fiscal year that began July 1 is tied up in the courts.

Kristin Petersen, vice chancellor for employee relations, said furloughs aren’t necessary because layoffs and other steps will help the college system trim its budget. She added that furloughs aren’t an attractive way to decrease spending because the impact is temporary.

Heineman ordered furloughs earlier this month after an end-of-fiscal year revenue report showed the state brought in $76 million less than what was officially projected. He also worried revenues may fall short again this year.

He said at the time furloughs of about 11,000 state employees would save the state about $3.5 million.

The actual amount could be less, however, because an undetermined number of employees probably will not be furloughed. That will be necessary to keep round-the-clock facilities like prisons running without paying overtime costs that would exceed savings realized through furloughs.

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