US States Shut Down To Save Cash
美国加州的司机们周五不能排队办理驾照续期了。威斯康星州的居民不能申请出生证复印件了。乔治亚州消费者将不得不推迟向州监管机构投诉了。马里兰州遇到麻烦的驾车者要获得高速公路局的帮助可能要多等一会儿了。全美各地腰包紧张的州政府都开始暂停办公一天，以便节约资金。加州缅因州马里兰州和密歇根州的州办公室每周周五不办公。罗得岛州曾经也有类似暂停办公的计划，不过周四被一位法官驳回了。Associated Press加州州长施瓦辛格周四在Tujunga一处被山火烧毁的房屋前举起哑铃在乔治亚州和威斯康星州，一些州机构休息，而科罗拉多州的大部分州办公室将在周二休息一天。其他州，比如亚利桑那州，有数千名员工被强制休假，不过该州一直在努力维持正常办公。目前为止，强制休假的影响看起来并不严重，因为大部分人都可以在停止办公前把州里的事务办好，或是通过网上填表办理。不过底特律家庭维权中心(Detroit Center for Family Advocacy)的执行律师格林(Tracy Green)说，办公时间减少已经导致救助工作放缓。该中心的工作常常涉及危机干预，不过一些案子好多天都解决不了，因为社会服务部(Department of Human Services)的工作人员都休假了。格林说，这真的带来了很多问题。该中心帮助低收入家庭避免把孩子送给别人收养。与此同时，在旧金山的一个车管所(Department of Motor Vehicles)的办事处，周四挤了150多人。车管所现场代表德居雅(Maria De Guia)说，去年夏季没有强制休假的时候，等候时间很少会超过一个小时，不过现在实行了每月三天的强制休假，人们每天要等上两个多钟头。更糟糕的是，办公室没有充足的人手，这意味着在任何时候，办事处的26个服务窗口有约三分之一是不办公的。强制休假对州工作人员来说实际上就是减薪，这是对衰退造成的政府税收收入减少的最新对应方法。据左倾预算与政策优先性中心(Center on Budget Policy Priorities)周四公布的一份报告，州立法机构一直在努力弥补亏空，目前赤字已经膨胀到1,680亿美元，相当于本财年各州普通资金预算的24%。对大部分州来说，本财年开始于7月1日。消费者减少了开支，打击了消费税收入，而失业则造成了收入所得税减少。据纽约州奥尔巴尼市的洛克菲勒政府研究所(Rockefeller Institute of Government)的数据，各州已经作出反应，提高了办理费用，并动用了应急资金，现在又不得不应对占了预算约13%的工资成本。政策分析人士说，出于政治和实际的原因，各州一直不愿裁员。美国州政府预算协会(National Association of State Budget Officers)执行董事派特森(Scott Pattison)说，相反，强制休假成了预算管理上的一种流行趋势，原因之一是省钱对州官员来说是件一目了然的事。不过强制休假对不断膨胀的退休金成本等财政问题却几乎无能为力。一些政策监管机构担心，强制休假只是应对可能会成为长期问题的一个权宜之计。传统上，政府工作在衰退中是一个稳定的岛屿。2007年底衰退开始后很久各州仍在继续招兵买马。不过据美国劳工统计局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)的数据，自2008年8月以来，各州已经裁减了约3.3万个岗位。专家们说，更多的裁员是不可避免的。强制休假已经影响了数十万工作人员，单单加州就有20多万。据零星的报导和全美州议会联合会(National Conference of State Legislatures)整理的数据，有20多个州已经考虑强迫员工接受无薪休假。该组织说，现在准确地计算出这些措施对各州的效果如何还为时尚早。据联邦统计数据，约有500万美国人为各州政府工作，从大学监狱到公立医院公园和各种各样的行政管理办公室。Leslie Eaton / Ryan Knutson / Philip Shishkin相关阅读美国人伤疤没好却忘了痛 2009-05-22失业应对良方──你休假我出钱 2009-05-07
California drivers can't line up to renew their licenses Friday. Wisconsin natives can't order copies of their birth certificates. Georgia consumers will have to postpone registering complaints with state watchdogs. And stranded motorists in Maryland may have to wait a little longer for highway-department help.Across the country, cash-strapped state governments are shutting down business for a day at a time to save money. State offices are shuttered Friday in California, Maine, Maryland and Michigan. Rhode Island had planned to join them until a judge on Thursday blocked its closure plan.Some state agencies are closed in Georgia and Wisconsin, and most Colorado state offices will be shuttered on Tuesday. Other states, such as Arizona, have been trying to keep their operations open while furloughing thousands of workers.So far the effect of furloughs appears to have been muted, with most people able to take care of state business in advance of closures or by filing forms online.But at the Detroit Center for Family Advocacy, which helps low-income families avoid sending children to foster care, furloughs have already slowed assistance efforts, said managing attorney Tracy Green. The center's work often involves crisis intervention, but some cases have sat unresolved for days because workers in the Department of Human Services were on furlough. 'It has been real problematic,' Ms. Green said.A Department of Motor Vehicles office in San Francisco, meanwhile, was packed Thursday with more than 150 people. Last summer, without furloughs, wait times rarely exceeded an hour, but with three furlough days a month, people are waiting more than two hours each day, said Maria De Guia, a motor-vehicle field representative. To make matters worse, inability to keep the office staffed meant roughly a third of the office's 26 services windows are closed at any given time.The furloughs, which basically act as salary cuts for state workers, are the latest response to plunges in tax revenue because of the recession. State legislatures have struggled to cover shortfalls that have ballooned to $168 billion, or 24% of their general-fund budgets, for the current fiscal year, which for most began July 1, according to a report released Thursday by the the left-leaning Center on Budget Policy Priorities.Consumers have reined in spending, eroding sales-tax receipts, while job losses have cut income-tax collections. States have already responded by raising fees and tapping rainy-day funds, and are now forced to deal with wage costs, which make up about 13% of their budgets, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y.For political and practical reasons, states have been reluctant to lay off workers, policy analysts said. Instead, furloughs have become the hot trend in budget management, in part because the savings are 'easy math' to state officials, said Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers.But furloughs do little to address fiscal problems such as ballooning pension costs, and some policy watchdogs fret they are a short-term solution to what is likely to be a long-term problem.Government jobs have traditionally been an island of stability during recessions, and states kept adding workers well after the recession began at the end of 2007. But since August 2008, states have shed about 33,000 jobs, according to data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Experts say more layoffs are inevitable. Furloughs have already affected hundreds of thousands of workers -- more than 200,000 in California alone.More than 20 states have considered forcing employees to take unpaid furlough days, according to anecdotal reports as well as data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures, which says it is too early to calculate exactly how much these moves save the states. About five million Americans work for state governments, according to federal statistics, from colleges and prisons to public hospitals, parks and all kinds of administrative offices.Leslie Eaton / Ryan Knutson / Philip Shishkin
California drivers can't line up to renew their licenses Friday. Wisconsin natives can't order copies of their birth certificates. Georgia consumers will have to postpone registering complaints with state watchdogs. And stranded motorists in Maryland may have to wait a little longer for highway-department help.Across the country, cash-strapped state governments are shutting down business for a day at a time to save money. State offices are shuttered Friday in California, Maine, Maryland and Michigan. Rhode Island had planned to join them until a judge on Thursday blocked its closure plan.Some state agencies are closed in Georgia and Wisconsin, and most Colorado state offices will be shuttered on Tuesday. Other states, such as Arizona, have been trying to keep their operations open while furloughing thousands of workers.So far the effect of furloughs appears to have been muted, with most people able to take care of state business in advance of closures or by filing forms online.But at the Detroit Center for Family Advocacy, which helps low-income families avoid sending children to foster care, furloughs have already slowed assistance efforts, said managing attorney Tracy Green. The center's work often involves crisis intervention, but some cases have sat unresolved for days because workers in the Department of Human Services were on furlough. 'It has been real problematic,' Ms. Green said.A Department of Motor Vehicles office in San Francisco, meanwhile, was packed Thursday with more than 150 people. Last summer, without furloughs, wait times rarely exceeded an hour, but with three furlough days a month, people are waiting more than two hours each day, said Maria De Guia, a motor-vehicle field representative. To make matters worse, inability to keep the office staffed meant roughly a third of the office's 26 services windows are closed at any given time.The furloughs, which basically act as salary cuts for state workers, are the latest response to plunges in tax revenue because of the recession. State legislatures have struggled to cover shortfalls that have ballooned to $168 billion, or 24% of their general-fund budgets, for the current fiscal year, which for most began July 1, according to a report released Thursday by the the left-leaning Center on Budget Policy Priorities.Consumers have reined in spending, eroding sales-tax receipts, while job losses have cut income-tax collections. States have already responded by raising fees and tapping rainy-day funds, and are now forced to deal with wage costs, which make up about 13% of their budgets, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y.For political and practical reasons, states have been reluctant to lay off workers, policy analysts said. Instead, furloughs have become the hot trend in budget management, in part because the savings are 'easy math' to state officials, said Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers.But furloughs do little to address fiscal problems such as ballooning pension costs, and some policy watchdogs fret they are a short-term solution to what is likely to be a long-term problem.Government jobs have traditionally been an island of stability during recessions, and states kept adding workers well after the recession began at the end of 2007. But since August 2008, states have shed about 33,000 jobs, according to data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Experts say more layoffs are inevitable. Furloughs have already affected hundreds of thousands of workers -- more than 200,000 in California alone.More than 20 states have considered forcing employees to take unpaid furlough days, according to anecdotal reports as well as data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures, which says it is too early to calculate exactly how much these moves save the states. About five million Americans work for state governments, according to federal statistics, from colleges and prisons to public hospitals, parks and all kinds of administrative offices.Leslie Eaton / Ryan Knutson / Philip Shishkin