Hiring Freeze Will Create 30,000 Vacancies in State : Employment: Assemblyman says services are undergoing a meltdown. Wilson Administration plans to continue budget cuts.

The hiring freeze for state employees will create roughly 30,000 job vacancies by the end of the year, the Legislature was told Thursday. But the new figures did nothing to sway the Wilson Administration from its goal of cutting workers’ pay by 5% and laying off an additional 2,500 workers.

Current and anticipated vacancies--more than 12% of all state jobs--prompted Assemblyman Dave Elder (D-San Pedro) to complain during an Assembly committee hearing that state services are undergoing “a meltdown.”

During a hearing of the Assembly Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security Committee, chaired by Elder, Administration officials said they were going ahead with cuts required to meet the $55.7 billion state budget adopted in July, and were not being influenced by the vacancies.

As of Thursday, there were 21,126 job vacancies in state government, representing 14% of all jobs funded from general purpose tax revenues and 12% of the jobs in agencies supported by special funds, such as gasoline taxes earmarked for transportation programs.

On top of that, officials from the Public Employees’ Retirement System said a record 9,379 workers have retired this year or announced plans to retire by Dec. 31, more than twice as many retirements as last year.

Almost all of the 30,000 jobs were left vacant by attrition and retirement in a little more than 12 months. Despite those, the Administration announced 375 layoffs Thursday on top of the 141 jobs already cut. The Administration said it expects it will need to lay off another 2,500 to meet its budget obligation.

Elder, using a widely accepted rule of thumb that the state spends an average of $50,000 a year for wages and fringe benefits for each employee, figures that the roughly 30,000 jobs will represent a savings of $1.5 billion, more than twice the $708 million that Gov. Pete Wilson and the Department of Finance say they must save.

Elder, growing angry as he heard pleas from state employees, used the word “inhumane” to describe Wilson’s continued push to force state employees to accept wage and benefit reductions on top of more layoffs. He suggested that alternatives such as voluntary time off be explored.

“This is like the feudal castle program of the 14th Century: Get out the rack, get out the whip, get out the stretching machine. We are going to get there, but we are going to get there our own way and we are going to have our own kind of pain inflicted,” he said.

Wilson, in comments to reporters after addressing hospital and health officials, said: “We take no joy in reducing service, and that is what happens when you reduce the number of employees. It is driven, plain and simple, by budget considerations.”

As he has in the past, Wilson criticized public employee union leaders for “selfishness” in rejecting his demand that employees take a 5% pay cut, and also pay for increased medical and dental insurance costs out of their own pockets. Wilson contends that a substantial number of layoffs could be averted if public employees would accept the 5% cut.

Pat McConahay, a spokeswoman for the California State Employees Assn., said: “We just wish this governor would step back and look at these (job vacancy) numbers and take them seriously. His remarks bear out our case even more, that the governor wants these cuts from us for purely political reasons. It has nothing to do with this budget at all.”