Gov. Paterson yesterday moved ahead with plans to furlough 100,000 state workers in just over a week, as insiders reported that “no progress” was made in talks aimed at producing a new state budget.
“The governor is not backing off. He is planning to move ahead with the furloughs in the legislation he’ll submit at the end of this week,” a Paterson administration source told The Post.
Paterson’s budget division is expected, as soon as tomorrow, to send a detailed memo to state agencies outlining steps to be taken to implement a one-day-a-week furlough for nonessential workers, which could save the cash-strapped state as much as $30 million a week, according to the source.
The governor raised the specter of the unprecedented furloughs late last month as he expressed frustration with the Legislature’s refusal to cut state spending as well as the refusal of the public-employee unions to agree to concessions to help close a looming $9.5 billion budget deficit.
One insider said two of the large public-employee unions did make a last-minute offer of some concessions to the governor, but only in exchange for a firm, four-year contract guarantee, including wage hikes.
But “the governor made it clear that he wasn’t going to lock whomever the next governor is going to be into a four-year contract,” the administration source said.
The furloughs would be contained in a temporary, one-week budget-extension bill, which, if rejected by the union-friendly Legislature, would lead to the shutdown of the entire state government.
Meanwhile, insiders said already serious tension over differing budget plans being backed by the Democratic-controlled Senate and Assembly have gotten worse in recent days, making it unlikely that the state’s more-than-one-month-overdue budget would be approved anytime soon.
Among the major areas of disagreement are the Senate’s insistence — despite the huge deficit — on a politically popular property-tax rebate and a new Senate plan to lift the cap on the number of charter schools, which is strongly opposed by the teachers-union-friendly Assembly.