Springfield’s shrinking state workforce
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Layoffs are a familiar story for some. Linda Norbut Suits is museum program manager for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, making her responsible for all the museum collections at the state’s many historic sites, including places like the Lincoln home, the Dana-Thomas House and the Old State Capitol.
When former governor Rod Blagojevich closed seven state parks and 12 state historic sites in November 2008, Suits was among the casualties.
The personnel budget for IHPA had been cut in half in July 2008, which meant layoffs were right around the corner.
“I remember thinking we were all going to get laid off,” Suits said. “I have a pretty good radar for those kinds of things, and I’ve weathered a lot of things. That one, I knew we were going to lose our jobs.” Suits was one of 24 workers at IHPA whose jobs were on the chopping block, and the prospect of being cut was a continual source of stress.
“Part of it was the yo-yo effect,” Suits said, explaining that the cuts had been pushed back numerous times, each time giving IHPA workers hope of staying on the job. “I had made peace with it, and then I thought, ‘Okay, maybe it’s not going to happen.’ It was that whipsaw that made it that much worse. By the time we were finally laid off, we were just a wreck — physically and mentally, completely exhausted.”
Suits and the others punched the clock for the last time when the seven parks and 12 historical sites closed their gates in November 2008. Then Blagojevich was impeached, and Quinn took office promising to reopen the parks and historic sites. He followed through in March, and Suits went back to work, but the budget crisis that precipitated the closures and layoffs remained.
Facing a record budget deficit between $8.95 billion and $12.26 billion, Quinn and the rest of the state’s leadership have proposed plenty of revenue options to fill the budget hole — gambling expansion, income tax increase and more.
“I remember thinking we were all going to get laid off. I have a pretty good radar for those kinds of things. I knew we were going to lose our jobs.”
Quinn rejected the General Assembly’s budget in July, instead calling for $1 billion in spending cuts, which he said required cutting 2,600 state jobs and mandating 12 unpaid furlough days for many of those that remained.
“The wolf is at the door,” Quinn told reporters. “It’s important that we protect the people of Illinois and the basic services of our government. At the same time, we can’t have any frills or extravagance in government.”
Quinn told AFSCME he’d have to cut 2,500 more jobs if they didn’t accept a wage freeze, later asking them to accept a pay cut of 11 to 15 percent, which would still leave 1,000 jobs at stake, according to AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall.
“I don’t think it takes a genius to realize that’s unacceptable to us,” Lindall told Illinois Times. He said Quinn also asked AFSCME to revisit the bargaining table to renegotiate the state’s health care contract with workers.
“There are many ways the state can address the budget problem and cut costs without cutting employees,” Lindall said. “We’ve recommended a number of ways, like raising the income tax and reevaluating contracts for services that state workers could perform.”
While the fight over layoffs continues, museum manager Linda Norbut Suits said her own layoff experience taught her it is important to remember the human toll such cuts can have.
“Its effects are far wider than you might think,” Suits said. “You read about these things in the newspaper, but they’re real people. And it doesn’t just affect the people laid off. It affects everybody.”
Contact Patrick Yeagle at [email protected].
