News & Events
AFSCME action alert: 2008 budget shortfall
As President of the state-employees union, I am contacting all of our members regarding the 2008 budget shortfall.
We have heard from a couple of our members that in anticipation of the projected budget shortfall, a few agency directors have already looked at terminating some employees in order to save money in their budgets. This is never a good idea and does not follow the spirit of the letter that Governor Napolitano issued to all agency directors in September of this year.
The Governor set out several ways that an agency can cut expenditures while preserving the services we provide and without harming our core mission. While deferring the hiring of new employees into an agency was one suggestion, there was no mention of terminating state employees in her letter.
AFSCME is looking at the agency budgets where employees have told us they may be terminated in order to identify other cost-saving measures, and we will forward those ideas to agency directors and the Governor's Office.
Please contact our office immediately if the administration in your agency starts talking about letting employees go. We want to be proactive in looking for ways to keep state employees on the job and will do everything in our power to find other cost-reducing measures.
Remember: AFSCME is the state employees union that works as hard as you do.
In Solidarity,
Sheri Van Horsen
President
AFSCME Local 3111
For more information, contact 602-252-6501 or info [at] azafscme [dot] org. To return to the News & Events page, please click here.