Civil service ‘taking a hit’ in budget: Jessome
Posted Apr 7, 2010 05:40:32 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The representative for the province’s civil servants says the public sector is taking a hit, and people who benefit from provincial programs and services will feel it.
The 2010 budget includes a plan to cut 10 percent of the civil service through retirements and voluntary departures, in an attempt to save roughly $65 million dollars a year.
Nova Scotia Government Employee Union President Joan Jessome says the civil service is definitely paying it’s share.
“We’re under wage restraint, wage freeze it’s one percent or under,” she said. “We’re looking at 1000 civil service jobs out of the system…I would say that the public sector in this province is definitely taking a hit.”
Finance Minister Graham Steele says the civil service already loses about five per cent of its workers through attrition every year.
“We are absolutely confident that we can acheive those reduction targets without resorting to layoffs,” he said.
Jessome says that may be true, but the reduced workforce will have an impact on programs and services.
“I know that there’s no way today that they can do the job with 1000 less people, whether it’s now or in four years,” she said. “We don’t know yet what programs will be delivered, how many and who will be delivering them. So there’s a lot of uncertainty.”
Jessome says she also has some concerns about changes coming to the public sector pension plan. The budget includes a pension earning cap of 1.25 per cent per year over five years to address a massive unfunded liability in the plan.
It’s expected to save up to $200 million a year.
Jessome says the change is “unpleasant, but necessary” to ensure long-term stability.
