Cayetano
says state will try
to avoid layoffs

He hopes to cut jobs through
attrition and retirement

By Mike Yuen
Star-Bulletin

Gary Gill, who found a job as director of the Office of Environmental Quality Control after his unsuccessful mayoral bid 3-1/2 years ago, may soon be without a job.

Gill's post is among 163 positions that Gov. Ben Cayetano is proposing to eliminate as part of a $111 million budget-cutting plan for fiscal 1999, which begins July 1. Cayetano has ordered his department heads to slash their budgets by as much as 10 percent because of the state's budget crisis.

Also facing the prospect of job hunting is Gill's colleague in the Health Department, Marilyn Matsunaga, administrator of the State Health Planning and Development Agency, which is responsible for approving construction of health facilities and purchases of major medical equipment. Her office, with eight positions, would be abolished.

Cayetano, however, would like to find another position for Matsunaga. "I think Marilyn Matsunaga has done a terrific job of reorganizing that organization and making it more efficient," he said.

Cayetano added that he would like to avoid layoffs and eliminate positions through attrition and retirement. It wasn't immediately clear how many of the 163 positions up for elimination are filled or vacant.

Nearly 28 percent of the slots -- 45 -- are in the Health Department, which faces an $8.5 million reduction.

"We just have to eat at the same small group of programs," said Health Director Lawrence Miike. With the state under federal court orders to improve mental health services, that area is untouchable.

"That leaves the family and community health divisions, the basic public health side," Miike said.

Although Gill and one of his planners would lose their jobs, the functions of Gill's office would not be abolished, Miike said.

The Environmental Quality Control's remaining two planners and a secretary would be put under Bruce Anderson, deputy director for environmental health administration.

The University of Hawaii would also be hit hard under the plan Cayetano presented to legislators yesterday. It requires the university system to slash $13.5 million in operating costs, including $8.4 million at the system's main campus, Manoa.

Cayetano's plan, however, is not entirely eliminations and reductions. A significant portion involves not funding the supplemental budget requests of the Department of Education and the state library system and funding some programs with special funds instead of the cash-tight general fund.

Karen Knudsen, Board of Education chairwoman, said she's grateful the department didn't have to take a 5 percent cut as Cayetano had wanted. But in avoiding that cut, she and other school officials must look at cutting their base biennium budget if they want to fund any supplemental requests, Knudsen acknowledged.

Budget Director Earl Anzai said school officials shouldn't have a difficult time cutting their $720 million base budget; they need to only find savings of about 3 percent. "I don't think that's hard to do in a budget of that size," Anzai said.

But the maintenance of public schools may suffer because the Department of Accounting and General Services would eliminate $5 million from its budget for school repairs and maintenance.

Schools would be spared, however, from a 10 percent reduction in the number of state telephone lines. The projected savings: $217,000.

Anzai's departmental budget was cut $30.2 million. But of that total, a $27.2 million reduction would come from the state needing to pay less for health fund premiums because of new enrollment figures and negotiated rates.

In the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, $1.2 million of general funds would be saved by having 21 administrative positions, including Director Kathryn Matayoshi's, covered by special funds.

The Labor Department would save $719,000 by across-the-board reductions in purchase of service contracts, including eliminating the contract for its ex-offender placement program, and by additional cuts for Head Start and civil legal services for low-income people.

Cayetano would eliminate 10 positions by merging two labor panels.

The Hawaii Labor Relations Board, which deals with union contracts, and the Labor and Industrial Relations Appeals Board, which handles workers compensation matters, would become a single panel, saving $219,000.

Twenty-one other positions in the Labor Department would be eliminated, including seven for investigators for the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission and nine elevator inspectors.

House Finance Chairman Calvin Say (D, Palolo) said his panel has identified about $90 million in cuts. He will be comparing his panel's plans with Cayetano's.

"I would say warm bodies will have to be laid off," he said.