( – promoted by odum)

In his op-ed piece in Sunday’s Times-Argus Jim Douglas 1) lies about the good faith offers state employees have made to ease the state’s financial woes, and 2) lies about the salaries Vermonters are asked to pay their state employees for the quality services upon which they rely.

Jim Douglas writes (emphasis mine):

With the average state employee making over $71,000 a year with benefits and in light of two consecutive pay raises over the course of the recession…it is not unreasonable to ask state employees to make some sacrifices to preserve the workforce and help struggling Vermonters afford their government…

How convenient that Douglas fails to mention VSEA’s February 2009 cost savings proposal.  In that proposal, VSEA offered to give up two years worth of cost-of-living pay raises as well as delay contractual “step” pay raises.  The offer was rejected by the governor, who is more interested in pursuing his job cutting ideology than in actually saving the state money.  Now he has the gall to accuse the VSEA of receiving the very pay raises they sought to refuse!

He continues:

In effect, the average Vermonter working in the private sector who earns under $50,000 a year and likely has not seen a raise during this recession, is being asked to pay state workers who make $20,000 a year more and had two raises in the last two years.

Although it’s difficult to tell for sure from his manipulatively vague language, it appears that Douglas is comparing an average state employee salary INCLUDING benefits to an average private sector employee NOT INCLUDING benefits – as if these two statistics are comparable.

The Burlington Free Press lists salaries for all state employees by name and job title (http://miva.burlingtonfreepress.com/miva/cgi bin/miva?SOVWageform.mv).  According to the Free Press numbers, there were 8689 state employees (including Governor Douglas) as of October 2008.  5216, well over half, earned less than $50,000 (not including benefits, which are not available from the Free Press site).  

One thing that is quite clear from perusing the Free Press site is that many of the 890 state employees earning top salaries (greater than $70,000 plus benefits) are non-union, “exempt” employees – i.e. employees not eligible for membership in VSEA;  the Commissioners, Agency Secretaries, and PR hacks whose numbers have increased disproportionately under Douglas’ governance.  Douglas doesn’t indicate where his “average state employee making over $71,000 a year with benefits” figure comes from.  But the relevant statistic would actually be the average VSEA-eligible state employees making over (fill in the blank) a year with benefits, which Douglas does not cite.  It’s the VSEA-eligible employees whose jobs are on the line and whose bargaining representatives have offered generous but fair concessions to ease the state’s budget deficit.

To claim that Vermonters earning $50,000 are being asked to pay exorbitant salaries to state employees who “make $20,000 more” is a gross misrepresentation based on deceptive math.  Vermont’s rank and file state employees are not overpaid.  In fact, Vermont’s public payroll per capita ranks 27th in the country – about average (see http://www.greenmountaindaily….

Douglas is correct that Vermonters are suffering.  Indeed, I agree that “it is not unreasonable to ask state employees to make some sacrifices to preserve the workforce and help struggling Vermonters afford their government.”  VSEA has repeatedly and sincerely offered to make just such sacrifices during the past few months.  Douglas has rejected them all – in pursuit of his mission to gut vital state services.  Please don’t fall for it.