FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 18, 2008
DHEC announces furloughs, program reviews
COLUMBIA – Staff of the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control will take five days of unpaid leave beginning next month, the agency announced today.
“A five-day furlough of all DHEC employees will generate just over $3.9 million,” said DHEC Commissioner Earl Hunter in an e-mail sent to staff today. “This will help greatly with the current budget cuts and, as importantly, will help us gain time as we continue our process of reviewing all of our programs to determine which responsibilities we can no longer continue to perform.”
Hunter said running the agency costs approximately $800,000 a day and is being done with fewer people.
“In 1999, we had 5,245 employees,” Hunter said. “By 2003, that number had dropped to 4,611. We now have 4,194 members of the DHEC family. We have lost over 1,000 employees, some 20 percent of our workforce, in less than 10 years.”
Hunter said future cuts would be determined based on whether state agencies have to make even more cuts in their budgets, along with a full assessment of those core public health and environmental protection programs that must be maintained.
“We fully appreciate the fact that the protection of the public’s health and the environment in which we live is at stake,” he said. “We will go forward and make decision with that thought as our guiding principle in the weeks and months ahead.”
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For more information:
Thom Berry – (803) 898-3885
E-mail – berrytw@dhec.sc.gov
BNR1877
NOTE TO EDITORS: The following e-mail was sent to DHEC staff by Commissioner Hunter this afternoon.
Good afternoon, staff.
My purpose in sending this e-mail today is two-fold. First and foremost, I want to sincerely wish you and yours a most blessed holiday season. It is no secret that these are truly the times that try our souls. Yet in the midst of uncertainty and challenges, it is even more important that we remember to take the time to celebrate, give thanks for and enjoy those gifts we have been given. My hope is that you are able to do simply that in the coming weeks.
Yet even as I wish each of you all the very best, we are all aware of the current budget situation facing our agency, our state, and the nation’s economy in general. That is the second reason I wanted to touch base with you today.
As you are no doubt aware, DHEC has sustained massive cuts to our state funding in the last six months. We began our fiscal year in July with a 2.8 percent base reduction, or about $4 million. In October, on the heels of lowered budget projections, our budget was cut an additional 13.7 percent, or roughly $19.6 million. Now, as a result of further across-the-board reductions to all agencies by the Budget and Control Board last week, all state government agencies have been cut an additional seven percent. For DHEC, that amounts to an additional $8.6 million. These are staggering numbers and cannot be simply absorbed.
While we were able to adjust our budgets to handle the initial 2.8 percent reduction, and we have done everything possible to deal with the 13.7 percent cut with as little impact to staff as possible, these latest cuts will now affect each one of us. Thus far, we have dealt with the reductions by freezing positions, using one-time funds and restricted funds as allowable by law, and offering a Voluntary Separation Program and a Retirement Incentive Program to eligible staff. But these are simply not enough to meet the total level of cuts we must reach.
It saddens me to announce that beginning in January, all of us, regardless of position or funding source, will have to take a mandatory five-day furlough before the end of May. This will be only a temporary solution to the deep problems we face since furloughs generate only one-time money; but a five-day furlough of all DHEC employees will generate just over $3.9 million. This will help greatly with the current budget cuts and, as importantly, will help us gain time as we continue our process of reviewing all of our programs to determine which responsibilities we can no longer continue to perform.
In addition to allowing for a more thorough and responsible review of programs and responsibilities, buying that time, at least temporarily, will save the jobs of about 75 DHEC employees for the next several months.
Unfortunately, those jobs and others are not safe forever. The cuts to our base are in recurring funds and as I mentioned, the dollars generated by this furlough and several other tools we have used will be one-time in nature. We will still have to find millions of dollars worth of permanent reductions for the start of the new fiscal year in July 2009.