Job cuts included in the budget reductions that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed last week don't stop with the layoffs of 593 full-time workers.
About 200 temporary and hourly wage employees who work for the state also will lose their jobs, according to budget documents and administration officials.
They are office workers, data clerks, landscapers, bus drivers, janitors and teaching assistants who supplement the state's full-time work force.
The wage-worker reductions, slated to save $2.3 million, do not include anticipated layoffs of temporary employees and wage workers in higher education. Kaine has handed over the budget ax to Virginia's public colleges and universities to cut more than $100 million statewide.
Under the current budget plan, the Virginia State Police is the agency absorbing the brunt of part-time layoffs. It is slated to lose 104 part-time positions of non-sworn workers to save $1.2 million.
"I don't recall a time in our history that has required layoffs or furloughs in order to meet our budgetary obligations," State Police Col. W. Steven Flaherty wrote in a memo to his staff outlining cuts to his budget, a copy of which was obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Flaherty wrote that the loss of 104 workers would force the department to "delay and eliminate certain noncritical services."
In Staunton, the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind will lay off bus drivers, interpreters, teaching assistants, security officers and housekeeping staff members to save about $475,000.
Also in Staunton, the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia will make $150,000 in cuts that include reductions of hourly wage employees who help maintain the grounds and staff special events.
In Richmond, the Library of Virginia will absorb temporary and full-time worker cuts included in $123,000 in savings.
Other departments losing hourly wage employees include the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Department of Emergency Management, and the Department of Forestry.
The state has about 10,500 temporary and hourly wage employees, in addition to about 5,800 part-time teaching faculty positions at state colleges and universities.
Officials said a specific agency breakdown on the number of hourly wage workers expected to lose their jobs was not available immediately for all departments. The figures vary depending on the pay for each job eliminated and the amount of spending a department was required to cut.
Secretary of Finance Richard D. Brown said the "vast majority" of the cuts to temporary staff in state agencies were included in budget-reduction plans that the agencies submitted at the request of the governor.
"The governor's starting points were their plans," said Brown, who this morning is to brief the Senate Finance Committee on the governor's latest spending reductions.
Citing a steep drop in state revenue, Kaine this summer asked state agencies to submit plans with 5, 10, and 15 percent cuts. Last week, the governor announced a sweeping series of spending reductions to the fiscal 2010 budget to make up for an anticipated $1.35 billion shortfall in revenue.
Included among the cuts was the closure of three correctional facilities; deferral of a quarterly payment to the Virginia Retirement System; and the elimination of 929 full-time jobs on the state payroll -- including 593 layoffs of state workers. The personnel cuts were expected to save about $170 million.
Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or jnolan@timesdispatch.com.
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