BRATTLEBORO — Listening to Gov. Peter Shumlin talk about the budget on the news lately, one would think that it is state employees who are being unreasonable.
Just this past Thursday, the governor was interviewed on WCAX about state workers and balancing the budget.
“I, too, am concerned that doing layoffs is not the best way to do this - that's why [state employees] should come to the table and make some pay concessions,” he stated. “Vermonters are not going to pay higher taxes because we have a state workforce who is refusing to be reasonable.”
His statement is contradictory because state employees are Vermonters and therefore, asking these workers to make concessions is a tax on Vermonters.
State employees are not the ones refusing to be reasonable. In fact, history shows that we are the ones who have been reasonable in the past, voluntarily giving up 3 percent in income and step raises to balance the budget under then-Governor Jim Douglas.
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State employees did not create this budget fiasco. Vermont State Employees' Association (VSEA), the state workers' union, bargained with Governor Shumlin in good faith, and that binding contract should be honored with as much integrity as the governor is honoring his private contracts. State employees took on a heavy burden when balancing the budget in the past, and it is not our turn to do it again.
What the governor is really saying in his statement is that wealthy Vermonters are not going to pay higher taxes. So, in order to remedy this income inequality, VSEA has put forth a revenue plan that proposes putting the burden where it has never gone before! And that is by asking wealthier Vermonters to pay their share and to stop asking the working class to do so.
Vermont needs to start taxing those who have enjoyed disproportionate income growth over the past decade. That strategy has worked in Minnesota, and it can work here.
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On the list to be cut are the Department of Public Safety, the Agency of Natural Resources, and the Department of Human Resources. These services have an impact on every Vermonter. So, reducing our workforce, reducing our compensation, reducing our state services, and reducing our morale only diminishes the many things we are proud of in Vermont.
I encourage all Vermonters to contact your legislators and tell them “No more cuts for state employees!”
The concession stand is closed.