• By MARK BALLARD
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jan 25, 2009 - Page: 7B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Facing a possible $2 billion budget deficit, Louisiana legislators and policymakers are looking hard at major layoffs for Baton Rouge’s largest employer.

They’re looking at the potential for state employee layoffs for the first time in a couple of decades. So far, the Jindal administration’s “layoffs” have largely amounted to shuffling workers into different jobs.

State Rep. Mert Smiley, R-St. Amant, recently warned Gov. Bobby Jindal that state government will have to shrink.

“We’re going to have to eliminate a whole lot more state jobs,” Smiley said, adding that the administration, so far, appears to be just scratching the surface.

LSU Chancellor Michael Martin said last week that about a thousand LSU workers likely will lose their jobs.

By any measure, state workers need to brace for a few rough months.

The U.S. Census Department figures for 2007, released in November 2008, reported that in a state with 4.2 million people, Louisiana state government employs 84,593, including higher education.

The Department of State Civil Service, which has a list naming every state government employee, says the number is more like 103,775.

Obviously, not an exact comparison, but the Census Bureau numbers do give a general sense of state government employment from one state to the next. It shows, for instance, that Alabama employs 88,617 state workers in a state with 4.6 million people.

As chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, state Rep. Jim Fannin will have much to say about future layoffs. Fannin says his focus is on the large-dollar salaries that are in the top 10 percent of the state work force. The slack will have to be taken there to avoid hurting essential programs, he said.

State Civil Service reports that more than 3,000 state workers make six-figure salaries.

Nearly 12,000 of the state’s employees — about 10 percent — make more than $70,000 per year. That’s roughly twice what the state’s average worker is paid.

State employees are not a very sympathetic lot, with their annual cost-of-living increases and lucrative retirement plans, not to mention much whining when their pay — it’s public record, by the way — is mentioned. Picking on them is easy. And it’s often done by politicians and talk radio hosts.