According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Rendell administration and the state’s largest public employee unions reached a tentative agreement on Thursday.  The state will temporarily reduce its contribution to the fund that administers worker health-care benefits by 20 % over the next 15 months, saving the state up to $200 million.

Rendell recently floated the notion that unless a cost-saving deal could be reached with the larger state unions his administration was prepared to institute rolling furloughs that would send workers home without pay for two days each month through June 2010.

Union leaders strongly opposed that option. According to the Inquirer, they lauded the tentative deal, which still has to be ratified by members.

David R. Fillman, executive director of Council 13 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, told the Inquirer he was happy with the agreement under which state employees will “not even notice any difference” in the health-care plan.

“I think it was a fair compromise,” added Kathy Jellison, president of Service Employees International Union Local 668, which represents about 10,000 state employees. “I’m cautiously optimistic.”

Jellison said ballots will be sent to her members next week and will be tallied April 20.

Fillman told the Inquirer he hoped his entire membership would have completed voting on the proposal by April 24.

Leaders for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 also have tentatively endorsed the pact. Talks between the administration and smaller unions are continuing.

Rendell said the Pennsylvania Employees Benefit Trust Fund, with $248 million in reserve, is well-funded and fiscally stable. The governor said the state is committed to paying back the fund in monthly installments starting as early as September of next year.

Rendell has forecast a $2.3 billion deficit in this year’s budget, and has said it could grow even wider before the new fiscal year starts July 1.

He has outlined a number of measures to close that gap, including asking all state departments and agencies to cut their budgets by 4.25 % and eliminating raises for 13,000 nonunion workers this year.

His proposed $29 billion budget for 2009-10 brings even more pain. In all, Rendell is proposing to eliminate funding for 101 programs, many of which he said were not essential to protecting the health, welfare and safety of the state. Some of those programs include funding for museums, arts groups and public television programming.

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer