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Speaker 1: We refer to the Indiana Capitol Chronicle a lot for

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Speaker 1: their excellent reporting that they do. They're a source for

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Speaker 1: the Kendall and Casey Show many times.

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Speaker 2: But there was a.

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Speaker 1: Commentary and opinion piece that came out from Nikki Kelly,

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Speaker 1: and I think it's worth a discussion because she has

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Speaker 1: a lot of points in there that she brought to lie.

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Speaker 1: It is the Kennel and Casey Show. My name is Casey.

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Speaker 1: Rob is out today, but Jim is in the studio

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Speaker 1: with me today. Thanks for boring, Hey, thanks for coming in.

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Speaker 1: So the title of the article or the opinion piece

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Speaker 1: is state employees bear brunt of state spending cuts and

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Speaker 1: as she says that Indiana agencies are implementing ten percent

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Speaker 1: budget cuts, heavily impacting state employees, which often make up

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Speaker 1: ninety percent or more of agency budgets. And isn't that

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Speaker 1: the truth that the highest cost in most any company,

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Speaker 1: government or not is the people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And so look, I hate it when anybody loses

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Speaker 2: their job. I don't wish that upon any but it's very,

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Speaker 2: very difficult to manage that. But if we're looking to

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Speaker 2: reduce government spending, and again, like you said, most businesses

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Speaker 2: if you look at most businesses, the vast majority of

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Speaker 2: their number one expense, or pretty close to their number

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Speaker 2: one expense is payroll, and Nikki spells it out in

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Speaker 2: this article. Same thing with government too. I mean, upwards

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Speaker 2: of ninety percent of the entire budget for some of

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Speaker 2: these agencies are payroll. If you want to cut expense

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Speaker 2: out of government, there's really no way to avoid cutting employees.

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Speaker 2: I mean, again, let's look at what happened with Doge

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Speaker 2: and Trump. When he came into office, one of the

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Speaker 2: first things they went after were employees because that's the

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Speaker 2: majority of the expense. So it's not really a big

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Speaker 2: surprise and we shouldn't be shocked that when Braun comes

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Speaker 2: into office and says, look, we've got to cut government spending,

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Speaker 2: that employee cuts are going to be part of that process.

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Speaker 1: But one of the things that she's pointing out is

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Speaker 1: that the remaining employees are taking on the increased workload

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Speaker 1: and performing their own duties and then those of their

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Speaker 1: former co workers. She said, some of the positions that

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Speaker 1: are deemed critical can only be filled after thirty days

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Speaker 1: of vacancy, which delays hiring to sixty or ninety days,

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Speaker 1: and it just puts puts it off. So the state

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Speaker 1: employee numbers dropped from thirty twenty two hundred and eighteen

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Speaker 1: in December to thirty thousand, six hundred sixteen as of

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Speaker 1: last week. That was a five percent decrease under Governor

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Speaker 1: Mike Brown. But she said, hey, the employee morale with

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Speaker 1: the state employees and the agencies is not the greatest

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Speaker 1: because resentment is definitely growing for the remaining people that

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Speaker 1: are there that still have to do the job that

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Speaker 1: they're assigned to, but also pick up the slack of

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Speaker 1: the former employees.

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Speaker 2: You know who's had to deal with this for the

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Speaker 2: last twenty or thirty years. Who everybody that marks in

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Speaker 2: the private sector, this has been going on in corporate America,

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Speaker 2: in the private sector for thirty or forty years. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: does stink? Yeah, do we need to reduce spending? Oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: oh we go, oh yeah, we need to reduce spending.

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Speaker 2: And yes, Okay, this has been happening in the private sector,

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Speaker 2: it should be no surprise that it's going to happen

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Speaker 2: in government.

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Speaker 1: That.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, when you reduce the number of employees, that means

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Speaker 2: there's going to be more work that go to the

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Speaker 2: employees that are left, and yes, I get it. That

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Speaker 2: stings for you. It's things for all of us that

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Speaker 2: have ever had a job at any point in time

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Speaker 2: ever in our lives. Ever, I wish I didn't have

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Speaker 2: to go to work every day. I wish I didn't

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Speaker 2: have to have a job, and that just money would

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Speaker 2: rain from the sky and I can pluck it off

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Speaker 2: of trees. But that's not the case. There's a reason

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Speaker 2: why they have to bribe you with a paycheck to

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Speaker 2: go into your job every day.

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Speaker 1: I gave you money and said, thank you, what more

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Speaker 1: do you want for me?

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Speaker 2: Nobody would go into work if they didn't pay you.

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Speaker 2: So I get it. It's tough when people lose jobs.

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Speaker 2: It's tough for the remaining employees that have to pick

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Speaker 2: up the workload. This is just a fact of modern

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Speaker 2: day life. And if we want to reduce our government spending,

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Speaker 2: it's going to mean cutting federal and state employees.

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Speaker 1: She said. Some other cost saving measures include canceling contracts,

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Speaker 1: delaying vehicle replacement, and also seeking legal changes to reduce

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Speaker 1: operational costs.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so she brings up a good there. So this

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Speaker 2: isn't the only place that the state is looking to

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Speaker 2: cut it's not like we're only cutting employees state employees. No,

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Speaker 2: they're looking at other things waste, fraud, abuse, contracts and

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Speaker 2: cars and all sorts of other things that are going

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Speaker 2: on out there. Employees are bearing part of the brunt

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Speaker 2: of all