EDITORIAL
Latest attrition plan cannot do the trick

In the past we have complained that those who are against tapping into the Hawai'i Hurricane Relief Fund are irresponsible unless they have concrete alternative ways to offset a looming $350 million budget deficit.

It's not enough to fall back on the old litany of waste, fraud and abuse or to promise vaguely that the money will be found somewhere.

But now House Republicans (and perhaps some Democrats who see any move on the hurricane fund as political suicide) have come up with something rather specific. They want to balance the budget through instant attrition.

They feel this can be done by eliminating 4 percent of state jobs — that is, by simply eliminating all the positions now vacant.

House Minority Leader Galen Fox, R-21st (Waikiki, Ala Wai), says the state could save $73 million a year by simply not filling half of the 3,000 current vacancies and hiring replacements for only half of the positions that become vacant within the next year. The remaining 41,000 would have to "take up the slack," says Fox.

This plan plays well to those who hold the misinformed view that most state workers are slackers anyway. But it's a horrible approach to management of an organization that must provide services that most of us consider vital. For starters, it would be an indication to state workers of low public esteem, and have a devastating effect on morale.

Attrition is a form of budgetary triage, and it has its place. Certainly the Cayetano administration has made use of it over the past several years.

But long term, it makes for bad policy. Particularly serious is the random nature of attrition. Vacant positions (which have reached their current levels through seven years of — ahem — attrition) are distributed very unevenly.

Perhaps Republicans think state workers are easily interchangeable, so that if there's a surplus of accountants, some of them can become wildlife rangers, drug counselors or doctors.

Somehow they have convinced themselves that we won't notice the permanent elimination of 3,000 positions — including 551 at the Department of Education, 104 in Human Services, 208 in taxation and 262 at the Department of Health.

It's hocus-pocus, but with a couple of saving graces:

• The Republicans recognize what we've advocated for years — state government must be downsized to fit the economy that must support it. What the Republicans need to talk about is the tougher job of identifying entire state functions that can be eliminated or privatized, rather letting attrition drag down everything that state government does.
• They draw the line at eliminating positions at the (already decimated) University of Hawai'i, the Department of Public Safety or public classroom teachers.

Given a good look at what the "attrition position" will do to state government services, we think voters will now recognize the painful logic of Gov. Ben Cayetano's recommendation to use the hurricane fund to balance the budget.