From the Times:

Even as layoffs are reaching historic levels, some employers have found an alternative to slashing their work force. They’re nipping and tucking it instead.

A growing number of employers, hoping to avoid or limit layoffs, are introducing four-day workweeks, unpaid vacations and voluntary or enforced furloughs, along with wage freezes, pension cuts and flexible work schedules. These employers are still cutting labor costs, but hanging onto the labor.

What the state of Ohio has begun in some state agencies, and will make available in most others, is the voluntary furlough.  Known by the dreaded euphemism, “Voluntary Savings Program,” the VSP is nothing more than a voluntary furlough.  A furlough of course is when an employer says, don’t come to work for a particular period of time, we’re not going to pay you, but when the time period is up – come on back, you’ll still have a job.  It’s unpaid time off.

At the state, employees who wish to take some unpaid time off will be able to choose to take a recurring time period off without pay – such as one week per month for a given period of time – or take blocks of time.  The voluntary furloughs are subject to management approval, although management is not able to steer employees to the program.  State managers will be using the ability to provide full customer service in their business units as a major determinant in approving voluntary furlough requests.

The state doesn’t have a great deal of experience with the program.  It’s been one of the tools in the box for some years, and was used to some effect at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources during hard budget times some years ago.

One bad thing about it is its name: Voluntary Savings Program.  This is just more government doublespeak.  Why not call it the “Voluntary Furlough Program?”  That’s exactly what it is.  When I see Voluntary Savings Program, I think deferred compensation or maybe the Christmas Club at the local state credit union.

Here’s hoping the VSP helps out on the budget front.  It certainly doesn’t do accomplish anything on the ‘say what you mean front.’

• $600 million in direct aid to New York City
• $700 million in education funding
• Merging several smaller state agencies
• Closing 13 prison camps or detention centers

Paterson also proposed 137 new taxes or fees:

The tax proposals are likely to touch almost every New Yorker in some way. The most notable new tax is an 18 percent levy on sugary soft drinks. But many other existing taxes would increase. The tax on car rentals would rise to 6 percent from 5 percent. Taxes on beer and wine would more than double. Taxes on gasoline, cable and satellite TV service, cigars and flavored malt beverages would also go up. And the cost of owning and operating a car would rise significantly, with 16 fee increases. The governor also proposed allowing wine sales in grocery stores and drug stores, which is expected to raise $105 million in the next fiscal year, mostly through licensing fees.

While the plan did not include an income tax increase for the wealthy, an idea pushed by Assembly Democrats, the state expects to raise $120 million next year by limiting the amount that millionaires can deduct from their state taxes.

Check out this New York Times story for more.

Executive branches from Washington to Albany propose budgets all the time.  They are a starting point in a process that winds through Congress or a state legislature and comes out on the other side as some sort of compromise.  How much of Paterson’s “proposal” is real or a tactic aimed at the incoming Obama Administration (direct aid for states) or at New York voters (prepare them for the worst, deliver something better)?

Here in Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland rolled out his own budgetary horror show late last week.  Meant to answer reporters’ questions about what a $7 billion budget shortfall would mean, a document from his press shop painted a grim picture of prisons closing, tuition rising at state universities and education cuts.

It’s very clear that the recession has put government services at every level in a bind.  A communications, political and strategic question is, when do you put out the red alert?  Paterson released his budget today a full month early.  Strickland’s missive to the media comes at least two months before legislators get down to the full-on politics of Ohio’s next biennial budget and weeks before Barack Obama will have any bearing on direct aid to states.

Let’s hope we’re not peaking the message machine too early and desensitizing the media when we’ll really need them to tell a story about more than scenarios.

• Strickland orders cuts of 4.75% in cuts to state budgets – Columbus Dispatch
• Governor Ted Strickland Press Release – Office of the Governor, State of Ohio
• Ohio Governor to make $540 million in cuts – Associated Press
• Governor cuts $540 million – Cleveland Plain Dealer
• Governor orders huge cuts in state budget – Dayton Daily News