ALBANY — Roughly 100,000 state workers will face a 20 percent pay cut beginning next

week until a state budget is approved, under legislation approved Monday at the Capitol.

The one-day-a-week furlough of approximately half the state work force will start next

Monday unless public employee unions are successful in a looming federal lawsuit to halt Gov.

David A. Paterson's cost-savings plan.

Affected will be jobs ranging from road crew workers and park rangers to state university

professors and clerks at motor vehicle branches. Not affected are nonexecutive branch

employees, including the judiciary, legislature and public authorities; public safety workers,

such as state troopers; and employees providing direct health care, such as mental health

facility nurses.

The furlough plan — inserted by Paterson into an emergency appropriation bill to keep

the state government running during stalled talks over a 2010-11 fiscal plan — was

approved 82-56 in the Assembly and 32-29 in the Senate Monday evening after extended debate.

Document: Senate, Assembly votes on bill

Earlier: Employees stage statewide protest of furlough plan

BuffaloNews.com Live: More from the Ellicott Square protest

Photo gallery: State workers protest furlough

Democratic legislative leaders called the payroll cutbacks illegal, saying they break

collective bargaining agreements. They added they had no choice but to push the bill through

or risk closing down state government, forcing the layoff of all state workers and shuttering

of state offices, as well as cutting off payments for programs ranging from Medicaid to

unemployment benefits.

"I think ultimately the courts will overturn it, because I think it interferes with a

collective bargaining agreement under federal and state law. I don't think that's

appropriate," said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan.

The vote came as state workers rallied across New York at noontime rallies called by the

Civil Service Employees Association and the Public Employees Federation, the major unions

representing the state work force.

A rally in a park next to the Capitol brought out about 2,000 state workers from their

nearby offices. Meanwhile in Buffalo, about 250 union workers chanting "No furloughs!"

gathered outside Ellicott Square — Western New York headquarters for many state

agencies.

"We just want the governor to pass a responsible budget. Putting us in the middle of a

political game of chicken with the Legislature is a failed strategy," Courtney Brunelle, CSEA

political coordinator, said at the Buffalo rally.

The governor has two central goals with the furlough plan: save about $30 million in payroll

costs to help close the state's deficit and bolster pressure on the Legislature to agree on a

budget, which was due March 31.

Paterson called the furloughs a "last resort" after union leaders "rejected all other

reasonable attempts at compromise."

The furlough provision was included in the sixth emergency appropriation bill to be approved

since the fiscal year began April 1.

Lawmakers said Paterson's goal of saving money will backfire.

"He looks like a fiscal conservative, but again he's going to cost the state money," said

Sen. William Stachowski, D-Lake View, who added that the unions are likely to win their

furlough challenge in court, forcing the state to reimburse the affected state workers —

likely with interest or penalties.

The furlough issue led Legislature Republicans to highlight the lack of a budget deal and

blamed it on the Democratic-led Assembly and Senate. All Senate Republicans voted against the

measure, as did most Assembly Republicans.

"I think we should have a budget so we don't have to have furloughs," said Sen. George

Maziarz, R-Newfane, who added that Paterson should keep lawmakers in Albany seven days a week

until a budget is finalized.

"It would be better to shut the government down for a day," Sen. Joseph Robach, R-Rochester,

said of trying to force legislative leaders to strike a budget deal with Paterson.

Paterson has argued that the state work force needs to sacrifice, along with schools,

hospitals and others, to help erase the state's $9.2 billion deficit.

He has called for $250 million in payroll spending cuts but said unions have been unwilling

to accept his ideas of a pay freeze or a lag in salary "at a time when more than a quarter of

a million New Yorkers in the private sector have lost their jobs and other local public

employee unions across the state are reopening their contracts."

The unionized state workers are in the fourth and final year of a collective bargaining deal

made with former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, which authorized a total of 13 percent in pay raises

during that period.

But union leaders say that their contracts are binding and that any attempt to cut the pay

of workers during the period is illegal.

PEF and CSEA plan to sue in federal court to block the furlough plan.

Paterson administration officials said the public will notice the effects of a furlough,

whether through longer lines at motor vehicle licensing branches or classes canceled at state

universities.

The furlough provision put the election-bound Legislature in a bind. Nowhere was it more

evident than in the Senate, where Democrats hold a narrow 32-30 margin and where the November

elections already are on the minds of many senators. The Senate earlier in the afternoon

passed a nonbinding resolution opposing the furloughs and then a binding bill requiring the

furloughs.

The Senate passed the bill along party lines, with all Republicans, except one absent

lawmaker, voting against it.

"We were not going to allow government to be shut down," said Senate Democratic Conference

Leader John Sampson of Brooklyn.

The unions sought to portray the furlough as hurting state workers and local economies that

benefit from the employees' paychecks. Western New York has about 16,000 executive branch

employees.

"The budget problem is not our problem," said Ken Brynien, president of the Public Employees

Association, which has said Paterson will not consider hundreds of millions in savings ideas

put forth by the union.

"This is not negotiation. We call this extortion," Brynien added.

"We didn't create this mess; Wall Street did," chanted Brunelle, the CSEA coordinator, at

the Buffalo rally.

"We barely make minimum wage," added Paul Doering, a maintenance worker at the

transportation department. "The governor has to stop flexing his muscles and destroying the

morale of our workers. Don't hurt us."

Several others mentioned the state's practice of hiring high-priced consultants that costs

the state more money. "They're the ones that get the raises, and how does that make state

workers feel?" said Dave Chudy, a social worker with the Office of Mental Retardation and

Developmental Disabilities.

Republicans sought to place the blame for the budget chaos on Democrats Paterson, Silver and

Sampson.

"The governor is looking to punish workers who, quite honestly, aren't causing the problem,"

said Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County. "It's the governor's failure of

leadership that's causing the problem."

News Political Reporter Robert J. McCarthy contributed to this report.