'91 Cutback In Workers Costly to Va.; Audit Raises Concerns About Allen's Buyout
An early-retirement program set up four years ago has cost Virginia's government far more money than it saved, a new audit says, raising concern among some officials that the state may be heading down the same road this year with a round of worker buyouts.</br></br>The 1991 retirement plan pared the state's work force by 3,535 employees and saved $37 million at a time when Virginia was hard-pressed to balance its budget because of the recession. But the state's independent auditor reports that so many of the jobs were refilled that savings in future years were negated.</br></br>The report said that as many as two-thirds of the workers who left some of the state's largest agencies were replaced later, meaning that the state wound up paying for the positions even as its retirement system was saddled with $238 million in additional liability.</br></br>The report comes at a time when Gov. George Allen (R) has embarked on an even more ambitious program to slash state government, not because of economic troubles but because of his belief that Virginia's bureaucracy has become too large and unwieldy.</br></br>A buyout program that took effect this month will result in the voluntary departures of 5,470 employees -- about 5 percent of the state's payroll -- and Allen administration officials predicted today that the state would save $368 million during the next four years as a result.