Sisters and Brothers,

As many of you may already know the Governor took final action on the budget bill from the special session.  We are happy that the Governor vetoed the 7.6% agency cuts and I want to thank all of you that made calls.  These cuts were extremely drastic and would have dealt a great deal of harm to our members and to the services you provide to the citizens.

We are dissapointed that the Governor has propsed a mandatory 5 day furlough for all state employees.  The Governor and legislature missed out on the perfect opportunity to fix the budget with a balanced approach of cuts and new revenue streams.

He did outline in his executive order that he wants to sit down with the unions to discuss what all of this means and that meeting is set for tomorrow morning. In the mean time we wait to have the meeting and see how that goes before we take any further action.

I will send out another update after tomorrows meeting.  Please feel free to call or email if you have any questions.

Josh Anderson

AFSCME Council 18
505-266-2177 work
505-266-3155 fax