November 25, 2008
Crunching the numbers
From Buffalo and New York City come reflections on the size of the state workforce. Buffalo News reporter/blogger James Heaney writes:
As I'm watching this train wreck of a state budget crumple like an accordion, I've wondered when any of our fearful leaders in Albany are going to start talking the obvious.
Layoffs.
He offers a spreadsheet on how much money the state would save if it reduced the workforce by 5,000 to 25,000 employees, noting that Governor Cuomo reduced the state workforce by about 18,000 jobs in the early 1990s during another fiscal crisis.
Cut 5,000 jobs and you save a little less that $435 million a year. Cut 25,000 - 10 percent of positions - and you save $2.2 billion.
Considering what we're up against - a need for some $14 billion in cuts - my math tells me that layoffs don't make much of a dent in the deficit.
Suppose you go whole hog and cut 10 percent of jobs. Roll back spending to the level of two years ago. You end up saving about $8 billion. That still leaves you with $6 billion to go.
Ouch.
Meanwhile, Daily News columnist William Hammond tries to dispel "bald-faced fibs" about the budget crisis, such as "We don't have to cut school aid or health care." He writes:
If Paterson took the drastic and unprecedented step of laying off 5,000 state workers, he would save about $400 million. But if he holds school aid and Medicaid flat - not truly cutting them, but stopping their growth - he saves $3.5 billion.
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