As state employees and others await the release of Gov. Bill Walker’s budget Thursday, he’s warning the employees the proposal will call for reductions in both state services and the public employees providing those services.
Walker said Wednesday his budget proposal for fiscal year 2016, beginning July 1, “includes staff reductions and will initiate a challenging, but necessary, discussion among Alaskans.”
He has asked departments to propose cuts of 5 to 8 percent but has not said exactly how big cuts will be.
Unions are bracing for job losses, said Jim Duncan of the Alaska State Employees Association.
He said they’d been told that 300 positions were going to be cut, but some are not filled now.
“It’s not clear at this time, and probably won’t be clear until April or May, the number of people who will be laid off,” he said.
Even so, the final number of job cuts will not be decided by Walker’s proposal, he said, but by the full budget process.
Via Alaska Dispatch News
image credit APEonline
