…did every state employee get time off without pay?
I would think that some key employees had to keep working and got paid retroactively.
I was under the impression that when the state shutdown that “essential” employees, such as state police etc., continued to be paid. I can’t see anyone working for free, or expecting to get paid back later… but I could be wrong.
Yes, large numbers of state employees were told to go home, file for unemployment. They will not be getting back pay. If I remember right, about 22,000 state employees were laid off. I haven’t seen any kind of estimate as to how many non-state employees were laid off because of the shut down. Jobs like road construction, contractors that clean the rest stops and employees at the race track (shut down because of lack of inspectors and officials).
Employees deemed essential were still working, and gettig paid. Even as the final deal to end the shut down was being worked out, a judge was still listening to arguements from groups trying to get additional state functions listed as essential.
Besides essential employees that kept working, other employees were allowed to use accumulated vacation & leave time to cover this, if they wished.
A lot of other, non-state employees were put out of work also. For example, a lot of construction projects came to a halt, because the required state inspectors were not available.
Conservation officer, and St. Troopers were also working.
All web sites were down, even the web site we enter ambulance run reports were down unless the service was also a fire department then they could bridge over to the other site, so we have to go back now and enter all our run’s. The state is very sympathetic, we were given a month to complete this.
I don’t know if this is relevant exactly, but when California ran out of money, they paid with “vouchers” or IOU slips. At first, banks happily accepted these as “as good as money,” on the “full faith and credit” philosophy. In time, banks started getting fussy. I seem to remember (but please don’t trust my poor memory) that some banks started accepting them at depreciated rates, i.e., only paying 90% or 85% for them.
Trinopus
Not Minnesota, but when PA had our budget impasse a few years ago, state employees continued to work (I think it was 3 weeks!) and were then retroactively paid once a budget agreement was reached.
Minnesota state employee checking in.
Got a cite for that? I don’t know of anyone who was allowed to be paid during the shutdown by using vacation leave, or was paid on the July 4 holiday. This website from Minnesota Management and Budget seems to agree (see the first FAQ).
After the 2005 shutdown (before I lived here), employees were given an option to cash in up to a week of vacation time to cover most of the time lost during the shutdown. That time, workers were “furloughed” rather than laid off, so (I think) they were not allowed to apply for unemployment payments. This time we were laid off, so we could apply for unemployment. If we are later given an opportunity to cash in vacation time, we would have to pay back our unemployment compensation.
The one bright spot in the layoff this time was that the state continued to pay its portion of our health insurance premiums, so we just had to continue to pay the amount we had been paying all along, and could still maintain our coverage. That would have lasted up to 60 days, had the shutdown gone that long.
Also, a word on “essential employees:” The few workers at my agency who remained on the job (maybe 10% of the workforce) made a point to describe the work, not themselves, as essential. In other words, the agency identified essential work, got the work approved by a judge, and then called in the minimum number of staff necessary to do the work. Those that were here were generally not doing their regular work duties, and were in fact monitored closely to make sure they weren’t doing anything that wasn’t approved by the judge.
All in all, it was pretty surreal for all involved.