A message from CACI President George Tiongson following CACI Board Meeting
May 18, 2020
Hello members – I hope you and your families are safe and well. I know there are a lot of concerns about the latest budget proposal from the Governor and I wanted to take this time to address some of those concerns. Your board members had a quarterly board meeting (by Zoom video conference) and discussed the concerns that have arisen from the proposed budget shortfall and possible state worker pay cut.
You probably have heard that the state is asking all state workers to contribute to the shortfall of cash due to Covid-19. It is estimated to be around $54 billion. The governor has asked that all state workers take a 10% pay cut. In order to meet that goal, the state will go through negotiations with CSLEA. Like CSLEA President Alan Barcelona said in his e-blast, CSLEA is in contact with the governor’s office and will go through the collective bargaining process. Like in the past when negotiations are held, these negotiations are confidential. But please rest assured, that Alan, and everyone at CSLEA, is aware of the concerns that a 10% pay cut would have on our lives. It is the unique position that Alan and CSLEA have created at the Capitol that have allowed us this opportunity to work directly with the governor’s office. Obviously, we can only have solace in knowing that we have our jobs and are not part of the estimated 25% that are unemployed.
There are a lot of unanswered questions at the moment that I would like to try and address, such as how much that pay cut would actually be? The pay cut could be dependent on how much federal assistance the state receives, but we don’t know how much of what we requested will be received and whether or not that will change the 10%. Will we be forced to take furloughs again? It was mentioned in the news that if negotiations are not successful they will look at 2 furlough days per month/employee; CSLEA knows the impact this had in the past and is working to minimize or eliminate this possibility. Will we be getting our 2.5% increase in July? Probably not, but that 2.5% will go towards the 10%. And there can be a lot of other concessions made before we have to go with furloughs, so I hope this helps with some of the anxiety and concerns you may have.
There are a lot of unanswered questions and it is too premature to address them. CSLEA will probably be meeting with the governor’s office this week and next, and a side letter will probably be drafted with the details, at which time the Board of Directors at CSLEA will meet to vote on the proposal.
The board also approved to push the Police Memorial winners (Aaron Barnett and Mikkel Libarle) to next year.
We had to cancel the annual CACI conference for this year, but please look forward to some CACI items that you may find useful.
We also approved the creation of a CACI scholarship for 5 deserving students in the amount of $1500, based on scholastic achievement, merit, and community service; details to follow.
Please continue to stay safe and well.
And if you have any concerns/comments/suggestions please route them to your site reps, board members, or to me and we will make sure it makes its way to CSLEA.
