The Douglas administration has an interesting mess on its hands with regard to the state job cuts and the recently discovered information that administrators were looking to soften the blow perhaps by simply changing the title of the jobs being cut.
If people are going to get in an uproar about cutting social workers, one solution is to call them something else. That was one possible solution.
That is among the things the Vermont State Employees Association discovered by seeking internal correspondences related to the job cuts. At first, the administration wanted to charge the union for messages, then relented, but said the union wasn't likely to find anything interesting.
The messages also reveal thoughts of keeping the governor away from the story of the job cuts and otherwise doing damage control.
If the governor were looking for a way to fuel the fire of the Democrats' argument that he has too many public relations people he just found it.
- Terri Hallenbeck