State Agency Employees Volunteer for Pay Cuts to Prevent Layoffs

Dept. of Consumer Affairs employees are taking a voluntary 10 percent pay cut to prevent layoffs.

By: Robert Kittle | News Channel 7
Published: October 17, 2008

State lawmakers are still working on a plan to cut the state budget by more than $500 million, but one state agency has already taken steps in hopes of avoiding laying off employees. Department of Consumer Affairs employees agreed unanimously at a staff meeting Thursday to take a ten percent pay cut to save money.

Charles Knight, a staff attorney at the agency, says of the ten percent pay cut, "It is a pretty good chunk, but when you consider the fact that somebody might lose their job and it'll be a hundred percent pay cut for them, nobody wanted to see that happen."

The voluntary furloughs started Friday. Each employee will take one day off without pay each two-week pay period. The agency will stagger the days off so no more than six employees are gone at a time.

And with people not at work but the workload continuing, employees are cross-training so they can do other jobs when people are taking their unpaid days off.

Consumer Affairs director Brandolyn Pinkston says the agency handles more than 7,000 complaints a year. "We've seen a tremendous increase. We've gone up probably 50 percent in complaints."

It's a relatively small state agency, with just 62 full-time employees. Because of that, losing any of them would have slowed down the work they do. Knight says, "It could mean that we could be delayed in getting responses to the consumers, consumer complaints might take a little bit longer to resolve. It might be more difficult for us to bring cases."

Pinkston says she's beaming with pride at her employees' selflessness. "It was like giving birth and I saw this wonderful child. That's just testimony to the department staff."