RICHMOND | Nearly 600 of the state’s 101,000 executive branch employees are being laid off, and state-supported colleges and universities will have state support substantially cut in new budget reductions.
Two state prisons will also close under the orders Gov. Tim Kaine announced Tuesday, and state employees would also be required for the first time since 1983 to contribute to their own state retirement plans.
The $1.35 billion in cuts are among the deepest and most painful Mr. Kaine or the General Assembly have ordered and the fourth round of reductions since July 2008, when the nation’s economy took its worst downturn since the 1930s.
The cuts also include a furlough of state employees on the Friday before Memorial Day in 2010. The unpaid day off will not apply to critical personnel such as police and emergency crews.
And local governments will also feel the pain. Mr. Kaine will cut support for sheriff’s offices across the state by nearly 5 percent, and state appropriations to local jails will be cut by about 7 percent.
The toughest cut, Mr. Kaine said, was laying off 593 state employees, particularly with the nation’s unemployment rate just short of 10 percent.
He also ordered that 336 vacant state jobs not be filled. Personnel cuts account for about 10 percent of the total cost reductions, he said.
“That is always the most difficult part,” Mr. Kaine said.
Initially, aides to the governor said, recommendations the administration received from state agency directors called for more than 2,800 layoffs.
Employees targeted for layoffs were being notified and asked to leave starting Tuesday morning. The largest bloc of layoffs, 225, are within the Department of Corrections, said Wayne Turnage, the governor’s chief of staff.
Two prisons - the Brunswick and Botetourt correctional centers - will close. The state will also shutter its juvenile correctional center in Natural Bridge.
Prisoners will be transferred to newer penitentiaries and jails, even as state support for local lockups diminishes.
The one-day furlough of state workers next spring saves about $16 million, Mr. Kaine said, money that was used to keep the number of layoffs from topping 600.
The May furlough day will not apply to most police and emergency personnel, but managers of agencies such as the state police will determine when the unpaid day will be taken.
Mr. Kaine isn’t proposing any tax increases to balance a cumulative revenue shortfall approaching $7 billion out of less than $33 billion in general funds anticipated for the current two-year budget - the worst on record, said Finance Secretary Richard D. Brown.
Mr. Kaine did propose about $9 million in increased fees, including new costs imposed on booking state park reservations by phone.
Left largely untouched in the latest cuts was state support for local public schools. “The school year has already started and these budgets were already written and that just wouldn’t be fair,” Mr. Kaine said.
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