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Retirement
boom looming for N.Y. By Joel
Stashenko, The
Associated Press One
in five state workers is likely to retire within the next four years,
state Comptroller Alan Hevesi said Wednesday in a report critical of the
Pataki administration's preparations to replace them. The
Democratic comptroller said the Republican administration essentially
leaves long-range personnel planning to each agency and lacks a
coordinated, centralized approach to make sure that crucial state jobs
will be filled by competent employees. "Tens
of thousands of state workers will be retiring in a relatively short
period," Hevesi said in a statement released with the report.
"This could leave some agencies struggling to provide vital services,
and some units and programs within those agencies decimated by the loss of
experienced employees." Information
supplied by the state Education Department and auditors' projections based
on state retirement system data indicates that the state Labor Department
is likely to lose 38 percent of its work force by 2007, the Education
Department 35 percent, the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance
35 percent, the Office of Mental Health 32 percent and the Department of
Health 30 percent. Seven
other state agencies are likely to lose more than 20 percent of their work
force to retirements in the next four years, auditors concluded. "The
baby boomer generation is starting to reach retirement age, and we have to
plan for these changes in our work force," Hevesi said. The
comptroller said the Education Department is doing things right by
identifying "mission-critical" jobs and developing strategies
and programs to maintain staffing levels in those positions. He
also said the Department of Correctional Services, which runs state
prisons, is trying to cope with impending retirements. But according to
Hevesi, some of those strategies can't be implemented without legislation
or changes in collective bargaining agreements with unions representing
prison employees. As
for the other agencies, Hevesi said it's unclear how they are planning to
cope with the loss of employees. He said Gov. George Pataki's Office of
Employee Relations refused to let officials at 12 agencies discuss their
job planning with the comptroller's auditors, instead referring them to
Employee Relations. Hevesi
said it appears agencies are making their own plans, but neither Employee
Relations nor the state Department of Civil Service are setting
performance goals or monitoring agency preparedness. There
was no immediate comment from the Pataki administration. In a response
contained in the report, Pataki's Department of Civil Service said it
would further analyze issues contained in the Hevesi study. There
are about 200,000 full-time state jobs. Hevesi said about 70,000 state
workers will become eligible for retirement by 2007 and about 45,000 are
expected to stop working. Hevesi said trends show
that about two-thirds of state employees who retire do so between the ages
of 55 and 64. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
