Some state workers receive full paychecks
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Gil Patterson had a full paycheck deposited into his bank account yesterday, a mundane event in most lives but a cause for relief for thousands of state employees who have been without a full payday for nearly a month.
The gap was created because the state Legislature failed to pass a budget by the July 1 start of the fiscal year, a standoff that will continue as Gov. Ed Rendell signed a skeleton budget on Wednesday that pays most state employees while leaving controversial funding battles for another day.
An insurance auditor, Mr. Patterson, 51, said he didn't blame the Legislature for taking time to grapple with the economic quagmire that has engulfed the nation and wreaked havoc on anticipated revenues. His counterpart across the table during a lunch break outside the State Office Building, Downtown, 61-year-old Mike McDermott, who works at the Department of Motor Vehicles, was not as kind.
"This shows a total abject failure of leadership in the state of Pennsylvania," Mr. McDermott said, noting that a partial budget could have been passed weeks ago -- before employees started missing paychecks.
Most of the 77,000 state workers who went without paychecks were covered in the partial budget, though employees at the Public Utility Commission, retirement funds and other similarly funded agencies will not be paid until separate spending bills are passed, according to the state treasurer's office. According to Deputy Treasurer for Fiscal Operation Keith Welks, there are fewer than 2,000 employees still waiting to know when they'll be paid for hours worked after June 30.
About half of the employees received their direct deposits yesterday, while the rest are due to be paid Monday. Back pay is included in the checks. Several employees filed claims for back pay with the U.S. Department of Labor. A spokeswoman for the department said she was unable to comment on ongoing investigations.
Mr. Patterson was one of many state employees who turned to interest-free loans to bridge the gap, so he said he made it through without a problem. Mr. Rendell asked the banking community to help workers in need, and the ACBA federal credit union, Downtown, was one of the lenders that stepped in.
CEO Mark McCormick said the credit union handed out about 1,200 interest-free loans to state employees in a three-week period last month -- when they normally handle about 1,000 in a year. Mr. McCormick said the credit union's five employees topped 70 hours per week, and 10 volunteers worked 40-hour weeks.
"I never worked so hard in my life," Mr. McCormick said. "And I never ate so much junk food."
Employees can pay the loans back by mid-September, Mr. McCormick said, or finance the debt over a year at a low interest rate. The median loan was about $1,000, Mr. McCormick said.
A similar frenzy gripped the Treasury Department this week as workers scrambled to process the state's payroll. Mr. Welks said he pulled in additional personnel and streamlined processes to turn around the paychecks in two days, and the plan went off without a hitch.
The result was a scheduled boost to Mr. McDermott's paycheck yesterday, though he said he was still upset with the political stalemate.
How could the commonwealth make it up to him? Simple, he said: two paid days off during the G-20.
First Published August 8, 2009 12:00 am
