The Green Party of Delaware strongly opposes Democratic Gov. Jack Markell's proposal to balance the state budget by cutting salaries of state workers, while increasing the cost of their health insurance, resulting in a substantial pay cut. As Democratic Rep. John Kowalko has said, this is essentially a tax levied only on state workers, who had nothing to do with the economic decline faced by the state. We in the Green Party wonder if this wealthy governor has any idea of the impact of this proposal on state workers, many of whom are underpaid. One consequence of his draconian proposal would be to make a significant proportion of state workers eligible for food stamps.

The proposal would remove millions of dollars from state workers. Consequently, the state economy as whole would be that much poorer. Businesses formerly patronized by state workers would have income reductions. More businesses would be pushed over the line into forced closure and bankruptcy, which would lead to more layoffs. Both state workers and the businesses they support would owe less income tax and other taxes to the state in the ensuing years, causing a vicious circle of economic decline and reduction in state income. Is this the direction we want to go? The Green Party thinks not.

The background of Delaware's treatment of the majority of its workers is relevant to the current proposal. Aside from teachers and state police, most state workers are at the bottom of the supposed pay range for their positions and have been for ten or more years. In some years, the Legislature has allocated money for a raise applied to all state workers, usually 2 percent or less. These raises are actually cost-of-living raises, which have inadequately compensated for the rate of inflation. Because inflation has outpaced these occasional cost-of-living increases, in real spending power most state workers are poorer now than they were five or ten years ago. Such cost-of- living raises are also applied to the whole pay range, so if a worker was at the bottom of the pay range before one of these raises, he or she is still at the bottom of the pay range afterwards.

Most residents and a surprising number of legislators do not understand that state workers are not given raises for their experience or accomplishments in a given job. This movement through their pay range, called step increases in many jobs, can literally only occur by an act of the Legislature. When the present pay system was implemented about 1990, workers were promised that, after a few years of experience in their jobs, they would be given raises to bring them to the midpoint of their pay range. But the Legislature and various governors have reneged on the promise. Instead of increasing salaries commensurate with experience, the legislature has a long history of using any available funds to grant tax cuts. A history of these tax cuts, to both individuals and businesses, is available online in the state Division of Finances Fiscal Notebook.

In all the discussion and the many words written about the state's budget crisis, the history of tax cuts has rarely, if ever, been mentioned. The decades-long history of these tax cuts is the elephant in the room, and it explains in large part how the state got to its current crisis. Legislators stated that they wanted to cut taxes, particularly on the highest incomes, to attract wealthy people to Delaware. These legislators were usually thinking of the highly paid executives in the financial business. Now the reckless practices of executives in this same bloated industry have been a significant source of the current economic decline. Instead of reinstating reasonable income tax levels on these highly paid executives, however, the governor proposes to make draconian cuts to the incomes of our public servants and their families, many of whom are paid considerably less than $30,000. So much for Gov. Markell's family values.

The Green Party sees this proposal as ironic coming from a Democratic governor. Even Republican legislators have rejected the proposed salary cuts as too harsh for state workers and their families. We call on the state to reject enactment of a tax on state workers alone. Instead, if more revenue is needed, the state must spread the burden among all Delaware residents, instead of one group of generally underpaid workers and their families. If more funds are needed, we call on the state to dip into its $186 million Rainy Day Fund, which is designed for use in deficit situations, as neighboring states are doing. There is no barrier to the use of these funds.