Days off without pay for some Idaho state workers

SAN FRANCISCO Nov 19 (Reuters) - Amid expectations that Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter will again cut state spending, two state offices are taking the unusual step of having their employees stay home this holiday season to save on expenses, state officials said on Wednesday.

Idaho's' Republican governor last week told Reuters in an interview that sliding sales-tax revenue amid a doubling of his state's unemployment rate from a year earlier is forcing him to look at additional spending cuts to keep the state's budget in balance.

Otter in September ordered most state agencies to cut 1 percent of their spending and to put another 1.5 percent of their budgets in reserve in case he called for further cuts.

Otter said it is increasingly likely he will have to ask state agency chiefs to give up that 1.5 percent.

Anticipating that, the state attorney general's office and agriculture department are moving ahead with plans to shave their costs by having employees take time off in coming weeks without pay.

The attorney general's office estimates it will save nearly $59,000 by having its roughly 200 employees take a half-day without pay the day before Thanksgiving and the day before Christmas, said spokesman Bob Cooper, noting it is the first time he has seen such orders in his 13 years in the office.

"People realize times are pretty tough right now," Cooper said. "Nobody wants to lose a day's pay or half-day's pay but in these times I think we're better off than a lot of other people. I'm not hearing a lot of complaining around the office."

The Idaho State Department of Agriculture is ordering its roughly 325 employees to take the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas off without pay to save an estimated $88,000, said Pamm Juker, the department's spokeswoman.

The plan is receiving mixed reviews. "We have some people who are happy to have another day off around the holidays and some people who think it is a hardship," Juker said.

Otter spokesman Jon Hanian said decisions about days off without pay, or other moves to reduce budgets, are in the hands of individual state offices.

"The governor does see it as an effective tool and one way of being responsive to the economic downturn we're in right now," Hanian said. "We're even considering it in this office."

The days selected by the attorney general's office and agriculture department are usually slow, he added.

"These are traditionally 'down-times,'" Hanian said. "We don't think this is going to impact customer service like going to a four-day workweek like some states are considering or have done."

In neighboring Utah, Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. put state employees on a four-day workweek in August to cut energy bills for state offices, triggering talk in statehouses across the nation as revenues decline of following his state's example. (Reporting by Jim Christie; Editing by Diane Craft)