CHRIS SEWARD - cseward@newsobserver.com
Angie Arnold, center, a Department of Corrections retiree, applauds during a state employees (SEANC) rally on Halifax Mall in Raleigh, N.C. on June 8, 2010. They were protesting possible job cuts in the proposed state budget and the Blue Cross no-bid contract for health insurance.
RALEIGH -- Mildred Bartley-Fox guided her motorized wheelchair up onto a stage outside the legislature today to try to save the job of the state employee who changed her life.
Fox, 62, has multiple sclerosis. She can not walk, dress herself or prepare her own meals. She is legally blind and unable to use her left arm.
But for the regular visits from Kim Stewart, a recreational therapist with the state Department of Health and Human Services, Bartley-Fox said she would have long ago been forced to move into a nursing home. Stewart helps her focus on what she can accomplish, not what she can’t.
“She has taught me to stand up for myself,” Fox said of her therapist at a rally for the State Employees Association of North Carolina. “I’m no longer confined to the four walls of my bedroom. I have freedom.”
Fox, who is from Rocky Mount, now faces losing that crucial assistance.
Stewart, who has worked for the state more than 28 years, was recently informed by her supervisor that her job is being eliminated due to budget cuts. She was one of more than 300 state employees wearing blue T-shirts who came to Raleigh Tuesday to lobby state legislators against eliminating jobs and on other issues.
“Unless the General Assembly acts, I will not be able to do the job I am so passionate about, serving the disabled,” said Stewart, who now faces unemployment less than two years from reaching the 30-year-threshold for full state retirement. “On a piece of paper, I am just another position being eliminated. But I have a name, and I matter.”
Dana Cope, the executive director of SEANC, questioned the wisdom of a budget proposal backed by legislative Democrats that would provide $39 million in tax breaks for private businesses. Cope said the tax breaks are touted as a way to create 1,500 new jobs. He then pointed out that proposed cuts to the UNC system could cost 1,700 state jobs.
Saying he was taking the risk of being accused of advocating “class warfare,” Cope argued that it makes no sense to shift government resources to the private sector in the midst of a recession. The floundering economy only increases the need for the critical services provided by government workers.
“It is class warfare,” Cope said. “It’s about the haves and the have-nots.”
Jimmy Davis, an employee at the N.C. Department of Corrections, recounted how he lost his job when the state prison where he worked was closed to save money. He moved to another position at the Division of Community Corrections, where legislators are now considering shifting some of the responsibilities for monitoring offenders on probation or parole to private contractors.
He pointed out that the state tried privatizing prisons, only to have to take the facilities back over when the for-profit companies failed to meet expectations.
“We don’t need privatization,” Davis said. “We need support from our legislators.”
Bartley-Fox, a former state employee herself, warned that legislators shouldn’t make short-sighted cuts that eliminate services that people like her rely on. Full-time nursing care would cost taxpayers more than the assistance she receives now.
“You never know when you might become disabled,” she said from her wheelchair. “I never expected this to happen to me. And in a breath, it can happen to you.”
