The Olympian's Adam Wilson reports that the executive branch hiring freeze may have a chilling effect on the state's so-far unfunded, unimplemented paid family leave program.
It's hitting at the staff necessary to fulfill the Legislature's $6.2 million appropriation for the rudiments of a computer system before benefits become payable in October of next year. Notes the ESD staffer quoted in the story, "It's a very tight plan to get there, with benefits by 2009. There's not a lot of wiggle room[.]"
Of course OBW readers know the $6.2 million for early IT work was a drop in the bucket of the tens of millions of dollars (and dozens of FTEs) necessary to initialize and run the program.
While it would make sense that the hiring freeze, if extended into 2009, would imperil the full implementation of the program, a more fundamental and interesting question for Wilson to ask would be whether the spending adjustments necessary to help offset a $2.7+ billion general fund shortfall will shelve a new and unfunded mandate like this anyway?
