SALEM, Ore. — Two Oregon lawmakers have proposed a four-day work week for state agencies as a way to help close the state budget gap.
House Bill 2932, sponsored by state Reps. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene and Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, would direct the state Department of Administrative Services to plan and carry out a four-day week for state workers, with operating hours from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., the Statesman Journal reported.
Thatcher sponsored a similar idea two years ago, modeled on Utah’s move to a four-day week in mid-2008. A 2010 audit noted that there are savings, although not as much as anticipated.
“But they are still saving money,” Thatcher said. “There are reductions in maintenance costs and employee overtime.”
Holvey, who is a carpenter’s union representative, said he expected the bill would be converted into a study by the Department of Administrative Services.
“The real point of this bill is to look at some alternative ways of doing business in state government,” said Holvey, co-chairman of the House General Government Committee, which heard the bill but took no action Thursday.
“It has some pros to it and perhaps some cons,” he said. “But it’s another concept that the state should take a close look at. This bill may need some amendments, but I think the idea behind this is whether we can find efficiencies or ways to save money and energy.”
Prompted by high fuel prices, Clackamas County experimented with the concept in November 2008, and made it permanent a year later.
Steve Wheeler, the county administrator, told the committee that the public and employees appear happy with the results, although just under half the county work force is under the four-day work week. Some departments, such as the sheriff and some operations of the county clerk, are exempt.
“For the most part, employees have been able to work out child-care arrangements, although some work accommodations have been necessary,” he said, such as employees having a 30-minute lunch and leaving 30 minutes early.
The two unions representing the largest groups of state workers were lukewarm to the proposal, though neither rejected it flat out.
“We would not dismiss any idea that saves money,” said Ed Hershey, who spoke afterward for Local 503 of Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 40 percent of state workers. “But we are unaware of where this proposal has saved any money.”
Council 75 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents the second-largest group of state workers and employees of Clackamas County government, is somewhere “between neutral and opposed,” said the union’s lobbyist, Mary Botkin.
She told the committee that negotiation between employees and managers is essential to making the proposal work — and could be done through the current collective bargaining process — but a bill mandating such a schedule is not.
“We as a union are always open to alternative work schedules where they make sense,” Botkin said.
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