Pastorek: Agency to cut 50

• By WILL SENTELL
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Oct 15, 2009 - Page: 12A

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek said Wednesday he plans to offer financial incentives to trim the work force at the state Department of Education.

Pastorek said employee ranks at the 650-member agency will be reduced by 50 workers in the next six months, in part through retirement incentives for classified employees and possibly layoffs.

“I want to accomplish a 50-person reduction by a voluntary process where people raise their hands and say ‘I will take a package and I will retire,’” he said.

The state departments of Insurance and Agriculture, as well as the LSU Agricultural Center, have already taken similar steps, which are designed to minimize employee layoffs.

Pastorek said the reduction plan will save up to $3 million per year for the department, which has an annual budget of about $60 million.

Under the plan, education department employees who are retirement eligible will be offered onetime payments if they call it quits.

Pastorek said those payments would total 30 percent or more  of what the state saves for the rest of the financial year, which ends on June 30.

Letters were sent to state Department of Education employees late last week. About 100 members of the agency’s workforce are retirement eligible.

“We have seen about 30 people indicate some interest,” Pastorek said of the offer.

He said that, if less than 50 employees accept the retirement package, layoffs will be needed.

Pastorek said he did not know what part of the department would absorb layoffs.

The superintendent said the 50-person reduction stems in part from a late legislative  change in the state’s $28 billion budget earlier this year.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, won approval for an amendment that stripped $7.7 million from department spending plans.