Donna Chabot, center, a nursing assistant at the veterans home in Bristol for 30 years, spends some retirement time at her sister’s home in Swansea. With Chabot is her cousin, Rick Cordeiro, of Westport, Mass., and her sister, Mary Ellen Ormerod.

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The Providence Journal Ruben W. Perez

PROVIDENCE –– Nine months have passed since Governor Carcieri announced detailed plans to execute “one of the hardest things that has ever been done in state government.”

The Republican governor vowed to cut 1,000 government jobs. The plan would save Rhode Island taxpayers $100 million, he said.

Yesterday, Carcieri’s office reported that it had indeed reduced the state’s work force by more than 1,000 people since mid October, relying heavily on a surge in retirements. The governor reduced his projected savings, however, to “north of $80 million” for the budget year that began this month.

“I think it’s a huge success. It’s the first time in memory that we’ve been able to reduce the work force by this magnitude and achieve this level of savings,” Carcieri said. “Nobody ever feels good about putting people out of a job. But the good news is the vast majority of these are people who retired.”

The governor cut the state’s work force by at least 1,059 people as of July 1 by laying off only 142 state workers and eliminating another 77 temporary contract positions. The bulk of the cuts came from unfilled vacancies from retirements and standard turnover.

And while Carcieri said he has no immediate plans for further layoffs or contractor cuts, the exodus of state workers has only begun. Spurred by a new law that reduces health benefits for those who retire after Sept. 30, the governor expects at least another 1,000 state workers to leave government before October. He plans to fill all but 400 of the vacancies, but it’s unclear how long that process will take.

“There won’t be chaos,” Carcieri said. “This is a great opportunity really … We may be running job fairs.”

Indeed, government officials still bracing from the most recent round of job cuts will soon have to deal with the loss of hundreds more workers.

Labor union leaders for months have warned that the exodus would jeopardize government services to citizens, potentially creating longer lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles, a shortage of child protection workers and a backlog of invoices for hundreds of companies that do business with the state.

But George Nee, secretary-treasurer of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, said that by one measure, Carcieri’s reduction plan has been successful.

“If success is defined strictly by having less employees now than we did when he started, I guess he could say that’s a success,” Nee said. “I think it’s a bigger picture than that. I think that if he were really committed to having a state work force that is both the right size and provides the most efficient services for people, that requires a lot more discussion with the people doing the work and that hasn’t happened.”

John Simmons, head of the business-backed Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, agrees that the success of the governor’s reduction plan depends on more than head counts and savings.

“With less people, are you providing less services. You need to look at whether they are necessary or not. You need to look at the efficiency,” Simmons said. “That would be a real measure of success if there really was a wholesale change in the way government performed services.”

The governor’s office plans to bring in volunteer efficiency experts from Textron, Johnson & Wales University and Providence College to help smooth the transition. The business leaders will meet with groups of managers in the coming weeks, according to the governor’s chief of staff Brian Stern, who said a specific transition plan is being developed.

The state knows who’s eligible to retire, but not which employees will head for the door in the coming weeks. But it’s clear that the retirements will affect every state department from the University of Rhode Island to the Adult Correctional Institutions.

Donna Chabot is one of the 868 state workers who retired in the last budget year, which ended June 30.

She had spent the last 30 years working as a certified nursing assistant for the state veterans home in Bristol. She said the governor’s work force reduction was a constant distraction in the final months of her job, which she left in March.

“The mood was awful,” she said.

At 52 years old, Chabot didn’t want to retire yet.

“Basically I was forced out because everything was going to change,” she said of her retirement health benefits. “I’m so used to getting up at 5 in the morning and getting in the shower and getting to work on time. All of the sudden, there’s nothing.”

Like many others, Chabot didn’t want to wait until September to leave, a decision that helped the governor meet his goal of cutting 1,000 jobs by July 1.

Altogether, 261 state employees submitted retirement paperwork in June, compared to 26 last June, according to Frank J. Karpinski, executive director of the Employees Retirement System of Rhode Island.

“I decided to leave now because I didn’t want to get in the middle of that rush, because I knew how it was going to be, with everybody leaving all at once,” Chabot said.

Karpinski and other state officials are bracing for hundreds of retirements before the end of September. There are an estimated 3,000 people eligible to retire.

In the average year, 400 to 500 state employees retire, according to Karpinski. He’s expecting at least double this year.

After Sept. 30, a retiree must be at least 59 years old and have worked for the state at least 20 years to qualify. Someone like Chabot would have to wait seven years to qualify for retirement health benefits, and her monthly contribution would increase as well.

The governor’s plan trimmed a state work force that was already trim according to at least one study.

Data compiled by Governing Magazine shows that Rhode Island in 2007 had fewer state employees per 10,000 residents than any of its New England neighbors.

The national magazine, which targets state and municipal leaders, reports that Rhode Island had 164 state workers per 10,000 residents; Massachusetts 187 state workers per 10,000 residents; New Hampshire: 188; Connecticut: 196; Maine: 221; and Vermont: 301.

As of July 1, 2007, state government employed 14,513 full-time state workers, according to the governor’s office. That total dropped to 13,631 by June 30, 2008, a figure that doesn’t reflect more than 100 employees who submitted retirement paperwork before the end of June that has yet to be processed.

“This has been a tough process. It’s not going to get easier. But it’s a necessary one,” Carcieri said. “We just have to do it.”

speoples@projo.com