Furloughs and Pay raises

Rumor currently on the vine involves the possibility of giving state workers unpaid furloughs of like 4 to 8 hours per week to save money. Any truth? Also heard that federal stimulus money may be used for a late state employee pay raise?

Although MOSERS does not handle issues related to pay for state employees we have received several inquires on these issues. Subsequently we contacted the Office of Administration to make them aware of the rumors. Here is their response:

“There are currently no plans for furloughs. As for pay raises, the legislature did not appropriate funds for a pay increase for state employees for the current fiscal year (FY10). In addition, the federal stimulus funds are earmarked for very specific programs and cannot be used for employee pay raises, so they cannot be appropriated for a pay raise. The federal stabilization funds are more flexible, but are intended to stabilize existing state service costs. The stabilization funds will be needed during the next few years in order to avoid deep cuts to the state budget. Cuts will still be needed, but the stabilization funds will help lessen the level of cuts that must be made. Therefore, they are not available for a pay raise.

In FY 2009 revenue collections declined 6.9 percent from the previous year; this resulted in a $778 million shortfall in revenue collections. Current estimates are that FY 2010 revenue collections will be nearly $400 million short.”