State government
staff swells
by 1,700

A House Republican
says the leap over six years
shows Democrats can't get
growth under control

By Mike Yuen
Star-Bulletin

In recent years, Gov. Ben Cayetano and state lawmakers have stressed reduction of government. But instead of shrinking, the state work force has grown.

There are now 1,700 more workers in state government when compared with 1993, House Finance Chairman Dwight Takamine (D, Hilo) has revealed.

That figure, said Rep. Galen Fox (R, Waikiki), an economist who sits on the House Finance Committee, illustrates that the Democratic majority has not been able to get the growth of government under control.

"These are tough years with no real increase in revenues. We need to downsize in relation to the rest of the economy," said Fox, who, with his GOP colleagues, believes that work-force reductions should be done by attrition and not by layoffs.

"I think," Fox said, "we could get a lot more performance out of all the departments, including Education."

Takamine's disclosure came yesterday as House leaders released details of the two-year, $12 billion operating budget that will be up for a vote by the House tomorrow.

When House leaders talked about their budget cuts, they were referring to reductions they made to Cayetano's spending requests. But when the House budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, is compared with the current year's, expenditures from the cash-strapped general fund would increase 4.3 percent, jumping from $2.989 billion to $3.119 billion.

The increase, Takamine said, mirrors the priority his panel placed on education, public safety and health.

An additional 416 teachers would be hired, bringing the total to 17,569. And 85 more prison-system staffers would be hired, bringing the total to 2,496. An extra 44 positions would be added to the Department of Human Services for the Quest health insurance program and child-related services.

Takamine said that since 1993, there have been 2,300 additional positions for the Department of Education and 400 for the Department of Public Safety, forcing other departments to slash 1,000 positions.

The state now has 32,200 positions funded by the general fund, according to House Finance data. The committee proposes increasing the position count to 32,740.

If all funding sources are taken into account, the number of positions in the state work force would climb from 41,587 to 42,228 under the House version of the budget.

State personnel spokesman James Dote said the most current figures show that as of December, there were 45,906 state employees.

The higher "warm body" count is because of positions being based on "full-time equivalents," such as two people working part-time positions, but in effect filling only one full-time slot.