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State Worker Can't Afford Cut

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 31, 2009

It was with the utmost shock and disappointment that my husband and I read in the newspaper that Sen. JD Alexander proposed cutting state employees salaries by 5 percent due to the lack of state funds. State employees in Florida are already the lowest paid government employees. They have also been deprived of cost-of-living increases for over three years.

There are state employees whose wages are so low they are eligible for food stamps. The pensions of state employees are also adversely impacted by not receiving increases, to say nothing of pay cuts.

My husband, a hard-working and conscientious 34-year employee of the state and a college graduate, earns $52,000 a year now that he is in management. In the private sector, or any other government agency, after 34 years, this salary would be considered laughable. I also was a college-educated state employee for 27 years, determining Medicaid eligibility for the elderly and disabled, and never earned more than $29,000.

It is up to Alexander, the governor and other state leaders to figure out how to plug the holes in the state coffers, preferably by hiking the sales tax and eliminating tax loopholes, without taking food out of the mouths of state employees and their families.

MARY SHOFI VOLPE

Tampa

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