Virginia State Furlough Day: Will Anyone Notice?
By Ward Smythe | Thursday, May 27th, 2010 | Policy
Thousands of Virginia State employees will not be reporting to work on Friday, May 28. The one day furlough is one of former Governor Tim Kaine’s final cost cutting measures and will save the Commonwealth some $17-18 million. Essential employees such as police, emergency personnel, etc. will be on the job tomorrow, but will take their furlough days at another time.
Kaine actually proposed four furlough days for the biennium as a result of the financial crisis caused by the Warner-Kaine “Let’s Spend Like Druken Sailors” era. To be fair, there were far too many Republicans willing to go along with them. Fortunately a good chunk of those Republicans are also no longer in office.
But this past session, Governor McDonnell and the General Assembly managed to close a $4 billion dollar budget gap, without raising taxes and without additional furloughs for state employees. True, positions were eliminated, but so far, essential programs aren’t suffering. (That’s essential programs).
There’s hope that one day we can see Governor McDonnell in an exchange like the recent one with between New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and a teacher (who, by the way, couldn’t do the math to calculate her own salary), where Governor Christie said, “you don’t have to work here.”
The whole excercise brings to mind the words and wisdom of President Reagan.
Former Director of Office of Management and Budget Jim Miller told this story.
On several occasions each year there was a threat of a government shut-down, as Congress and the President failed to agree on a budget. One day, after a particularly difficult time when I thought negotiations would have borne fruit but didn’t, we came to the “magic hour” when we had to notify all non-essential federal employees to go home. I was pacing up and down in the Oval Office, apologizing to the President and wondering what to do next, when he turned to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, “Jim, Jim, just settle down. Let’s closer ‘er down and see if anybody notices!”
It’s a thought.
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About the author
Ward Smythe is a pseudonymous aspiring freelance writer from Central Virginia. Until late 2007 Ward blogged at the now defunct "Ward View" and was active in Virginia and national politics. Ward's signature style of snarkery gained him a unique following that he hopes to regain here at Bearing Drift. Ward uses humor, satire and sometimes photoshop to make his point. Ward is proud to be an equal opportunity offender.
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Comments
6 Responses to "Virginia State Furlough Day: Will Anyone Notice?"
Richmond Radio’s Doc Thompson (WRVA) had a show this week on the topic of furloughs. It seems that if you are a State worker who is a US citizen, you take the day off without pay. However, if you are lucky enough to be employed by the state, and are NOT a citizen, you will be allowed to work and draw your pay. The state must apply for a $1200 per employee per day waiver from the Feds to allow a non citizen to take a day off without pay.
Apparently most of the foreign state employees teach at State colleges.
Tom White,
Just how gullible are you? Just how many of these jobs are covered by non-citizens and just how many politicians expected to keep their jobs if they were?
Little David:
Just how cynical are you?
“H1-B Visa employees. Federal Department of Labor (DOL) and US Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) regulations preclude furloughing employees holding these visas.”
Read the document yourself:
http://www.dhrm.virginia.gov/documents/FurloughDayFAQs.pdf
OK, and just how many Virginia state employees hold H1-B visas? I’d like to know. A few professors at our state universities? OK, I can live with that. But if we are talking any significant number I would be concerned about why this was necessary in the first place.
H1-B is a visa that allows foreigners to come in and work. I suppose the Federal Government feels that if we invite them, they should get a full work week, even if we screw Americans instead.
How many? More than zero. Pretty sad if you ask me.
I would think that the justification was that if an H1-B visa is necessary they should not allow employers to game the system by only paying the worker for 1 day out of 5 and using them as fill ins or something. Employers are not forced to hire the H1-B employee after all, they have the entire American workforce to consider before they resort to it.
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