COM 0711.137 2008-2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The Honorable Chairman J Yoshimoto and Members of the County Council May 5, 2010 Page 2 percent this year, and proposed yet another 9.3 percent spending reduction in the year ahead. We reduced salaries and wages in the Mayor's office by 17 percent this year when my staff accepted the first furloughs of any County government employees. We will cut spending on salaries in the Mayor's Office by another 5.9 percent in the year ahead. These changes represent a total savings of $863,392 since we took office. To further reduce County spending, this revised budget proposal incorporates an additional $1,852,137 in savings achieved through the furloughs of. United Public Workers union members who are employed by the County. When combined with the Hawai`i Government Employees Association furloughs outlined in our previous budget submittal on March 1, we expect to save a total of about $7 million in the coming year through the twice -a -month furloughs of County workers. Imposing furloughs was a difficult step to take, but it allows the County to avoid the layoffs that have affected some state workers. The furlough plan includes elected officials, appointees and excluded managerial employees, and represents a 9.23 percent pay reduction for all affected employees. These furloughs will touch every County department, and we recognize the furloughs will cause hardship for some employees and their families. We are asking our public employees to share in the kinds of sacrifices that have been imposed on so many in the private sector during these difficult times. At the same time, we ask our public workers to renew their commitment to public service. We owe that to the community we serve. We have imposed cuts across the entire spectrum of County government. All County departments were instructed to reduce their budgets by 5 percent last fiscal year, and then to cut another 10 percent in the current budget year. Now, for the new budget year that begins July 1, departments were asked to reduce expenditures even more, by up to 20 percent. We also froze step increases in pay for all managerial and appointed employees. This year we unfunded 55 vacant positions, which was the largest number of positions ever to be unfunded in a single County budget. In our new FY 2010 -11 budget, we propose unfunding even more -- an additional 70 positions. That's an unprecedented total of 125 positions unfunded in the first two years of this administration. Apart from unfunding vacant positions, we also had 95 fewer "warm bodies" working for the County this spring than at the beginning of my administration because of our firm adherence to hiring restrictions and attrition to shrink the County workforce. Our restrictions in hiring and elimination of vacant funded positions over the past 17 months have allowed us to shrink the number of funded County positions nearly to the fiscal year 2005 -2006 level. Our proposed tax rates would also take us back to fiscal year 2005 -2006. We propose in this budget submittal to return to the property tax rates of fiscal year 2005 -2006 for most categories, which will result in the County collecting slightly less in total property tax revenue next year as compared with this year. To protect our homeowners, we are County of Hawaii is an Equal Opportunity Provider and Employer.