HHS hoping to use vacancies instead of layoffs

Lauren Dorgan spends most of her Capital Beat column discussing the Senate race, but reports on how Health and Human Services is planning to meet the personnel cuts outlined in the state budget:

Commissioner Nick Toumpas wrote a rather hair-raising letter to Health and Human Services employees last week about layoffs.

So far, according to Toumpas's letter, the 46 employees at the soon-to-be-closed Tobey School are the most clearly impacted; five were laid off last week and four others were reassigned to the Sununu Center or to the Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Services.

Beyond that, to meet the budget, Toumpas wrote, the department needs to "reach and maintain a 10 percent vacancy rate," which equals 335 vacancies. As of last week, the department had just over 250 vacancies. "Hopefully, retirements and normal attrition will get us close to the 10 percent mark, and we will not have to resort to additional layoffs to achieve this reduction," Toumpas wrote. (more)

HHS accounts for half of New Hampshire's General Fund, and would presumably have to come up with half of the $25 million in personnel savings tacked onto the back of the state budget.