THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 24, 1994 TAG: 9408240017
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Gov. George Allen has embarked on the difficult task he promised in his election campaign last year: ``rightsizing'' the state government by eliminating jobs in the state workforce. Naturally, he is taking flak from affected interests and state Democrats, but if the governor wants to keep faith with those who elected him, he should shrug off criticism and scissor on.
Making his first appearance before the General Assembly's budget committees on Monday, the governor claimed $14 million in annual savings from the elimination of 445 throughout state government. That process included the actual firing or demotion of about 200 state workers, the rest owing to attrition. The governor says this is simply a first wave; a state task force is focusing on future reductions.
Does Virginia state government need reducing? Even many leading Democrats acknowledge that changes are necessary. A 1993 report by the Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations noted that Virginia had 182 full-time equivalent positions for every 10,000 residents in 1991; that's 30 above the national average of 152. And the American Legislative Exchange Council found that the compensation of Virginia state employees rose 80.6 percent in the 1980s, compared with 69.5 percent for comparable private-sector workers.
The ALEC study focused primarily on salaries. It is important to note, however, that state workers receive benefit packages that are often more generous than private-sector workers receive. And none of this is to mention the job security government workers have traditionally enjoyed.
Democrats have delighted in pointing out such missteps as Education Secretary Beverly Sgro's doubling the size of her own staff while cutbacks take place elsewhere. The administration is likely to get more cooperation from the bureaucracy if the upper ranks lead by example.
But legislature Democrats and state employees don't really have much to complain about. The cuts that have been made up to this point amount to barely one-half of one percent of the total state work force. State workers aren't likely to win much sympathy from workers at Newport News Shipbuilding or members of the armed forces.
One of the factors fueling the widespread disgust with government is the perception that it has not shared in the post-Cold War/information age restructuring undertaken in the military and the private sector. Gov. Allen should be applauded for changing that situation. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
GOVERNOR ALLEN
by CNB