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Tuesday, August 04, 2009

State of Pennsylvania has 5,000 Vacant Positions

In response to a recent question posed us - about how many actual workers vs. unfilled positions Gov. Rendell would have to eliminate when he talks about cutting state workers - we received (and quickly, I may add) a response to an Open Records request from the Office of Administration.

Their records, as of June 2009, indicate between 5,200 and 5,600 vacant positions.   (I’m not sure I understand the difference between “Actual Salary Total” and “Number of Positions Authorized”, but the numbers are pretty close)

Thus, the Governor could theoretically eliminate 5,000 “positions” without laying off an actual state worker (realizing that some vacancies will undoubtedly need to be filled, and positions are assigned to specific departments).

June 2009 PA state employes

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

And not laying off people is a bad thing? I really think you look to cause pain with people of this great Commonwealth.

Nathan Benefield said...

Anonymous,

Either I do not understand your comment, or you do not understand the post.

The point was that when Rendell claims he'd had to eliminate 800, or 2,000, positions he could in fact do so without laying off a single state worker.

I don't believe not hiring someone for a vacant position that is being eliminated will "cause pain with people of this great Commonwealth".

gordo53 said...

Every state agency is bloated with political hacks in protected jobs. I suspect you could cut staffs by 50% and nobody would notice.

Nathan Benefield said...

The staffs would notice.

I'm not suggesting there aren't numerous political hacks, and workers who don't do much work - those types are plentiful - or that government can't function with far fewer employees.

I'm am suggesting that Gov. Rendell's choice of raising taxes or laying off state workers is a false one.

Anonymous said...

I thought the Governor said that these (vacant) positions have already been eliminated from budget consideration.

Can we confirm these vacant positions are indeed part of the $29.2 billion budget the governor proposed?

How much actual dollars do these 5,235 positions actually save off the 09-10 budget?