By Daniel Potter
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-957717.mp3
Nashville, TN – Governor Bill Haslam says his first budget proposal confronts a problem that's been looming. Tax revenues plunged about three years ago, but federal stimulus dollars let the state put off many budget cuts. Now that money is gone, and revenue still isn't what it was. So in his first state of the state address last night, Haslam laid out how Tennessee's budget will shrink to fit what he's calling the "new normal."
There are a couple things the state has put off these last few years - laying off hundreds of workers, and giving those that remain a raise. Last night Haslam proposed both, and started with the layoffs.
"There will be 1,180 fewer state positions next year," Haslam announced.
About half those positions are already vacant, and a lot of others were already marked to go away, Haslam says, since past budgets paid for them with one-time money.
The Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities would lose several hundred jobs, while Children's Services would move more kids to privately-run group homes.
Even as the state trims its employee headcount, Haslam says it can't keep putting off raises for workers.
"If we're going to have a great higher education system and hard-working state employees, we cannot continue to ask them to go without raises. Our budget proposes a 1.6 percent salary increase - the first increase in four years," Haslam said.
After the speech, the director of the Tennessee State Employees Association, Robert O'Connell, spoke to the tension between raising salaries and laying people off.
"We ourselves in TSEA, we shift back and forth - they're both so important to us. The jobs themselves are very important to us, and it's important for people to be fairly compensated and to receive some kind of increase as time goes on. So it's a tough balancing act for the governor; we think he's doing his best, and we appreciate him," O'Connell said.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle spoke well of Haslam's speech, with a few caveats. House Democratic Caucus Chair Mike Turner:
"This was a pretty good budget; like I said, the devil's in the details though - we've got to figure out how he gets to some of these places. You've got to plug a few things in to get there. But overall I'd say right now without delving into it I'm pleased with what we saw tonight," Turner said.
Both Turner and his senate counterpart, Minority Leader Jim Kyle, barbed Haslam for not talking more about job creation.
How much impact Democrats will have on the budget as it winds through the legislature is an open question. Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey notes Republicans don't need to include them at all.
"We obviously have the numbers to pass the budget but that's not what we want to do. We want to listen to both sides and listen to all the arguments and make sure that we hear from all sides, but in the end I think the people spoke loudly last year when we now have a 64-to-34 Republican majority in the House, and a 20-to-13 majority in the Senate," Ramsey said.
The message, Ramsey says, is voters want cuts, and less government.