HONOLULU– Governor David Ige is considering a 20% pay cut for state workers due to a drop in tax revenue triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, but hasn’t made any decisions on the proposal.
Ige announced the idea on Wednesday in a news conference, saying he was in discussions with unions and lawmakers about potential cuts but no decision has been made. He said the tax shortfalls meant the state needed to cut $1.5 billion from the state budget over the next 15 months, according to Associated Press.
After Ige’s Wednesday announcement, Hawai‘i State Teachers Association (HSTA) held an emotional live conference on Facebook to voice their thoughts and concerns before the proposal is set in stone.
“Governor Ige, passing cuts on your workers will only hurt the economy, hurt your workers and hurt our keiki,” said HSTA president Corey Rosenlee.
Rosenlee was not happy with the proposal and said there must be other alternatives then to cut 14,000 teachers’ pay in Hawai‘i. The average salary of a Hawai‘i teacher is $65,000.
According to Rosenlee, they are in their third year of a four year contract and the last raise the teachers got was about a 3 % increase in pay.
“Our first responders should be getting hazard pay not pay cuts. For other government workers including teachers they will be getting a 20 percent pay cut. Right now we have cafeteria workers who are feeding our kids and risking their lives, and they will be getting a 20 percent pay cut. This is not fair,” Rosenlee said.
Rosenlee said the governor believes that these “draconian cuts” must be done immediately without looking at alternative measures. He said Hawai‘i’s teachers understand the crisis, but now’s not the time for a pay-cut.
As a twenty-year plus social studies teacher, Rosenlee believes that the worse thing one can do in a economic downturn is to restrict the money supply. He suggests Ige utilize federal emergency crisis funds to keep the Department of Education and other state entities afloat, rather than cutting pay.
“This is why the federal government has passed a $2 trillion stimulus bill and is working on another,” said Rosenlee. “The state has over a billion dollars in its cash surplus and its rainy day fund. Governor, it’s raining.”
According to Rosenlee, leaders from Hawai‘i’s private sector unions were informed by the governor’s representatives that the governor was planning on cutting government workers salary for over a year.
Rosenlee said it included a ten percent pay cut for the first responders including: firefighters, police officers and nurses and could start as early as May 1st.
Senate Ron Kouchi and Speaker Scott Saiki issued a joint statement Wednesday about Ige’s proposal, urging more research before any action is taken.
Although Governor Ige has the unilateral authority to impose furloughs and salary cuts, we do no agree with such action. We urge the Governor to obtain better data and analysis before he makes this decision. We also urge him to act on all alternatives, just as the National Governors Association did when it called on Congress four days ago to provide an additional $500 billion to the 50 states to stabilize state budgets due to take revenue shortfalls. Although we disagree with Governor Ige’s proposal, the Legislature will work with him to assess and pursue all options,” Saiki and Kouchi said in their joint statement.
Jodi Kudimitsu a math teacher at Maui High School and a former graduate of Kaua‘i High School voiced disappointment in the proposal at the HTSA press conference.
Kudimitsu said there should be other options to be looked at instead of cutting other people’s pay while trying to maintain some kind of normalcy for her students.
“My husband is a teacher too. This pay cut is also equal to the amount of our childcare. We have to figure out how we are going to make it and figure our monthly budgets…it is stressful,” said Kudimitsu. “In addition to us, we have friends who are employed by DOE and just had babies. We feel bad for them, how are they going to care for their child with all of these budget cuts?”
Department of Education Complex Area Superintendent Bill Arakai is working closely with the state.
“These are uncertain times for our entire state. This pandemic has impacted the state’s revenues, and we know this is having a very real and direct impact on jobs and many people’s livelihoods,” said Arakaki. “The Department of Education is awaiting guidance from the state’s Budget and Finance office on how to proceed in this environment with regard to budget implications for the 2020-21 fiscal year.”
He continued: In the meantime, we continue to closely monitor and control our expenditures while remaining focused on providing quality distance learning instruction state wide for all haumana (student).”
“I am hoping our Educating Governor Ige does the right thing,” said Rosenlee.
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Stephanie Shinno, features and community reporter, can be reached at 245-0424 or sshinno@thegardenisland.com.
If you are a State worker right now, and staying home while doing nothing, and getting paid, then this is more than fair.
1. with everyone staying home, less money is needed; we are getting by on less money at our house;
2. reduce the state workforce; good time to clean house and cut the fat;
3. do we really need so many layers of management in our school systems ?
4. does it really take 4 people to fix a pot hole ?
5. run it more like a business or vote for people that will;
There are numerous special funds which often get raided to balance the budget — for example, the hurricane relief fund and especially the highway fund. But there’s another special fund that never gets raided.
OHA has more than $650 Million in assets sucked out of our economy and stashed in the stock market, real estate, etc. For decades OHA has hoarded money like nervous shoppers today hoard toilet paper. And OHA’s wealth keeps growing.
OHA is a sacred cow. It’s time to slaughter this cow to provide food to feed the needs of all Hawaii’s people regardless of race. State constitution says we must have OHA. But sending OHA 20% of gross revenue from all public lands was an ordinary law passed in 1979, and can be changed anytime the legislature wants to change it. Now is the time.
So, hes gonna cut pay instead of getting the money elsewhere like that rail project that, by time its done wont be any benefit cause population continues to grow. He should be concentrating on doing what he needs to get families what they owed from unemployment.
We’re all in this together, right?
I love how HSTA tirelessly promotes Democrats at every opportunity because supposedly Democrats are the only ones that care about teachers an our keiki. Wake up!! Stop voting for Democrats that decade over decade mismanage taxpayer monies and can never be prepared for anything! STOP ELECTING DEMOCRATS. Ige is a clown, but no doubt HSTA promoted him over his last opponent. Hawaii is weakened by its devotion to the DNC. At the very least we need balance and accountability, so elect more Independents, Republicans, Conservatives, and people with a track record of impressive success.
Hey i didn’t hear from him first that he would cut his pay, his staff, the legislators and all the kings merrymen. He would rather manipulate his subjects, make them more dependent on government. He is a narrow minded liberal democrat leftist, he will use the Fed funds for handouts hoping to gain sympathy nd control. Hey hsta and other zombie union members you guys voted him in this is what you got get in lock step let him rule you. One other thing, he will be one of the last governors along w/ CA & NY to open up the economy and let the people back to work, very simple think of the pharaoh of Egypt, Caesar, same guy. Open your eyes Ige 😞
seems as if he try’s to do the wrong thing in every situation. the true tragedy is that Ige was re-elected in the first place – mind boggling. or maybe he’s one of those dim-witted geniuses, like columbo?
Sorry, but, with kids literally being home-schooled by parents (some of whom are still working a normal job during the day and holding “school” in the evenings), teacher’s workload has been reduced by at 20% at least… No? So it seems like a reduced salary is somewhat logical.
Non essential government workers who are not reporting to work should be either furloughed or laid off permanently. That is only common sense. With the country and the state on lockdown there will be no tax revenue to pay for them when this is over. Our politicians do not subscribe to this as most of them are in the back pockets of the unions. Government workers should be treated no differently than private sector workers.
The preponderance of evidence will be heavy in civil courts against the governor and mayors of Hawaii when they try to explain the “state of emergency” when more people will die from car accidents this year than covid-19…People of Hawaii better make sure there are guidelines for shutting down the economy in the future or they will shut down for a lesser reason. People of Hawaii, if you don’t want your rights taken away, you better stop being complacent.
Ige is a clown. It’s his fault that our state is this bad. If he had balls and brains he would of shut our airports down early on and we would of been business as usual less the tourist not 100% but at least disease free and maybe 50% running. Now he like cut pay. Cut his pay and all his staff after all there the ones that didn’t do shit during this pandemic but let it get worst before taking action. If anything give Lt. Gov Green a raise he was right all along and stupid Ige silenced him. Who the hell voted for Ige?