Gov. Jack Markell announced Nov. 2 that more than 1,000 vacant positions have been eliminated statewide, a move which will save the approximately $13.7 million this year.
However, some state officials are saying it’s going to take a lot more than cutting vacancies to help Delaware balance the next budget.

Markell reported 525 open state jobs have been marked for elimination in the months since the budget was passed July 1; that’s on top of some 485 unfilled positions identified earlier in the year.

“The single greatest cost in the state budget is personnel. The state needs to be serious in how it manages attrition from employees who retire and cautious when it fills any positions that open up in other ways,” Markell said. “Reducing by 1,000 the number of positions in state government not only cut costs in the short-term, it puts us in a far better position to meet any challenges in the future.”

Most of the vacancies were in the state’s two largest agencies, the Department of Health and Social Services and the Department of Correction. But, the governor added, all offices of state government were affected.

Ann Visalli, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said no positions were cut in the judiciary, but that Chief Justice Myron T. Steele is working on a plan to scrap some of the vacant spots in his division.

Even with an aggressive attrition plan, Markell admitted the next budget cycle is shaping up to be even tougher than the last.

In September, the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council projected state revenues are short by more than $47 million, and the estimates are expected to worsen by the time the panel releases its next set of prognostications in late December.

“It’s going to be a brutal budget,” Markell said. “It’s going to be very, very challenging given the fact that DEFAC says revenues are down by about $47 million, the fact that half of the stimulus money is going away, and we have more people qualified for Medicaid.”

For fiscal year 2010, Delaware received more than $150 million in federal stimulus money that went directly to patching the budget hole. The majority of that was one-time funding that Delaware won’t have the benefit of when fiscal year 2011 rolls around.

In addition to further review of vacant positions, the governor said his cabinet officials are looking for opportunities to save money by consolidating functions.

But Secretary of State Jeffrey Bullock said his department and other state agencies likely will struggle when it comes to finding more fat to trim.

At the first of a month-long series of departmental budget hearings Nov. 2, Bullock told Visalli and other OMB officials that his agency cut all the vacant positions it could and scaled back services dramatically in order to balance the last budget.

Bullock said the Department of State eliminated 83 unfilled jobs, 13% of its total personnel authorizations from the previous year, and closed two state museums. It also shut down a new 30-bed wing of the Delaware Veterans Home, which, if filled, would have required more staff to comply with federal regulations.

“We’re down to the lean, any deeper and we’re cutting flesh or maybe even bone,” he said.

Like all other state agencies, Bullock’s department submitted a budget to OMB that includes no increases over this year, as well as contingency plans reflecting budget reductions of five and 10%.

But, Bullock warned, if those contingency plans turn into leading options the effects will be unpopular at the very least.