LINCOLN — It seems like an easy enough question: How many jobs are vacant in Nebraska state government?
But an Omaha state senator and others have found reliable answers tough to come by as they try to determine whether eliminating vacant jobs can play a big role in solving the state’s budget woes.
A couple of weeks after the Department of Administrative Services generated a 692-page report on state job vacancies, lawmakers and others have concluded that almost all the figures in the first-ever report were inaccurate.
Omaha Sen. Heath Mello, who had been pressing for the information, said the agency apparently didn’t take the task seriously. He called the resulting report “a complete and total inaccuracy.”
“If this report — which isn’t that difficult to do — is so messed up, what other problems are out there that we don’t know about?” Mello asked.
Another state senator, John Harms of Scottsbluff, said it was embarrassing to find that, in this computer age, the state cannot generate such figures.
The job vacancy report was viewed as an essential piece of information as senators, during the special session that began last week, weigh how to cut $334 million — or about 4.8 percent of total spending — out of the state budget. After all, eliminating an unfilled job is much easier than laying off a person.
State officials, including the governor’s top budget manager, dismissed the complaints. They said that the report was only one of many tools in considering budget cuts and that the Department of Administrative Services was given inaccurate, out-of-date data by other agencies.
“My report was 100 percent correct,” said Carlos Castillo, director of administrative services.
That comment closely mirrored State Budget Director Gerry Oligmueller’s response last week to the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee. Both Mello and Harms sit on the committee.
The report’s accuracy, Castillo said, “depends on what value each agency puts on producing a correct report.”
“At the end of the day,” he said, “I can’t force someone to do something they don’t want to do when they don’t work for me.”
That’s because the state has a decentralized human resources system. Every agency, Castillo said, has its own HR manager who was responsible for providing data. Those managers are not employees of the Administrative Services Department’s personnel division, which compiled the data and generated the report.
It was the first time that Administrative Services had attempted to give an agency-by-agency report of job vacancies in state government.
Mello said Administrative Services assured the Appropriations Committee last spring that $815,000 worth of computer software it was seeking would allow it to produce a job vacancy report. That led to language in the state budget bill directing the agency to “accurately track vacant positions” and report the information on a quarterly basis.
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An overall figure for state job vacancies was not provided because, Castillo said, his agency wasn’t asked to do that.
The World-Herald did the math and found that the report listed more than 2,100 vacant jobs representing about $63 million in salary.
A World-Herald review of the sprawling document found several obvious errors, including:
ŸListing as vacant a state college president’s job that paid $13.4 million. The job wasn’t vacant, and the salary was a small fraction of that amount.
ŸListing every job in the state college system as vacant.
ŸListing more than 60 jobs at a Hastings correctional facility as vacant. The facility was closed four years ago.
Castillo, asked whether his agency noticed those errors or double-checked the figures with the individual agencies, said “no.”
“We wouldn’t have any reason to believe if someone’s number was accurate or inaccurate,” he said.
Castillo said his agency spent a lot of effort advising agencies about what information was needed and informing them it was intended for state senators.
“We did our part,” he said.
Over and over during public hearings in the past week, Mello asked state agency representatives about the accuracy of the figures. Only three or four said the figures were correct.
Mello said lawmakers are left with no idea of the true number of vacant jobs in state agencies and, thus, how big a role elimination of positions could play in resolving the $334 million budget gap.
He has complained in the past about other data being unavailable to state senators trying to craft a budget, and he has called for changes in the budgeting process.
During the past week, several agency directors testified before the Appropriations Committee that they planned to eliminate vacant jobs to meet the governor’s suggested budget cuts.
Mello sent Castillo a letter Tuesday, asking whether the agency could provide an accurate job vacancy figure before the special session ends, or at least before the end of the year. Castillo couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday, when state offices were closed for Veterans Day.
Castillo said Tuesday that he hadn’t seen the letter yet. “If we can provide useful information to the Legislature, we’ll be happy to do that,” he said, “but I can only do what I’m responsible for, which is my agency.”
It’s unclear whether the next report, due after Jan. 1, will be accurate.
Said Castillo: “If someone wants to change state statute and make all HR people report to me, I’ll take responsibility for its accuracy.”
Contact the writer:
444-1304, paul.hammel@owh.com
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