State Employees and Furlough

By Matthew Spinks

Albuquerque Journal- “State employees will be required to take 5 furlough days within the up and coming year…As Governor Richardson decided, this was the best course of action”. As many people know, our state is facing a deficit upwards of 500 million dollars and with the decision of one single man, thousands of families will be forced to deal with the upcoming monetary issues without having any say on the issue. Many people know that State representatives were able to participate and weigh in on the issue of the deficit, yet no state employees on the clerical or even somewhat administrative officials were unable to weigh in on their opinions of the issue. The financial issue was pawned off on low level employees whilst the governor refused to remove “107 appointed employees” who all serve in the upper echelon of state run agencies, and knowing that these positions were debatably “Unnecessary” the factor of their six figure pay hardly came into question. According to the article, the governor “refused to be moved on the issue as he argued they were all necessary”. Obviously there is something wrong when a person can be forced into going without pay, and it becomes even worse when employees who make the agencies run have absolutely no say on the issues. It is direct social control and unfortunately there is little or nothing to do against it, as is the case in many recent social issues. Along with these debatable issues, the journal also cited the ratios of employees to administration in an attempt to further the argument, but there is no evidence that this ratio affects the problem.