State workers, residents react to state furloughs

Local union state workers and residents are responding to a furlough plan adopted Monday by state lawmakers forcing state employees to take one day off with no pay for each week there is no state budget in place. Furloughs would begin May 17.

Brunilda Batista, 47, of Coram, works as a custodian for a building at Stony Brook University. Batista, a state employee, said the possible work furloughs would devastate her family which includes a 16-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son.

Her husband was laid off three months ago from his job as a school bus driver making her the sole family supporter.

"I couldn't sleep last night because I was thinking about bills and food for the house," she said. "I already don't make enough. I don't know what I would do."

Batista said she couldn't believe that lawmakers would think about cutting state employee's salaries.

Another state worker, Lynn Muscarello, 43, of Ridge, works in information technology for the Department of Conservation. She said as a single parent of an 18-month-old son, she worries the furloughs may mean relying on family and friends to help take care of her child.

"It's unfair that workers who make the least amount of money are being hit," she said.

Muscarello said the furloughs idea was presented too quickly. "We are all kind of in shock," she said of herself and other state workers. "It [the announcement] didn't give us time to prepare ourselves financially or emotionally."

Muscarello said if the furloughs go through she will have trouble paying her son's day care, about $1,200 a month, and her property taxes, about $6,000.

"Working for the state is supposed to be secure," she said. "But with the cuts, me and my son have to suffer."

Paul D'Aleo, of Lindenhurst, president of CSEA Local 102, representing more than 700 state park workers from Montauk to Valley Stream said, "The first misconception is that state workers make a lot, when we only average about $36,000 a year. We get paid every two weeks, and this [furlough] is taking away 20 percent of our salaries. Creditors don't want to hear that. They just want their money. People are going to have to go out and find part-time jobs."

Leon Cheshire, 35, of Roslyn Heights, who is currently going to a technical school, called the furlough action "Unfair to state workers," before adding half-humorously, "If they didn't steal so much, they'd have more money."