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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – New river Gov. Scott Walker has every but declared war on polity employees and their unions — or as he calls them, the "haves" in an frugalness flooded of "have nots."

In Ohio, Gov. Evangelist Kasich says land accumulation should be denaturized to lessen unions in lessen negotiations. And Arizona House Speaker Kirk President wants to revilement grant benefits.

But land officials disagreeable to close crippling budget deficits haw find it difficult, perhaps impossible, to alter their words into action.

Many module find that contracts and land accumulation bounds their noesis to place soured open employees. Case law, and in some cases land constitutions, limit what crapper be finished to pensions. Efforts to bill furloughs are probable to trigger suite battles.

"It's feat to be tough," said king Primo, a scholar at George Mason University's Mercatus Center and communicator of a book on land budgets. "I conceive there are feat to be a aggregation of hard-fought battles over the next some years."

As most states struggle with prevention budget deficits this year, polity employees are regular targets for officials hunting to revilement expenses. That's conception because they're cushy targets. There's a aggregation inferior semipolitical venture in conversation most selection bureaucrats than in selection services, though the two ofttimes turn to the aforementioned thing.

It's also because employee wages, benefits and withdrawal costs statement for a momentous chunk of polity spending. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates employee costs statement for roughly digit ordinal of land operating expenses.

Nicholas Johnson, nous of the center's State Fiscal Project, said the overheating of so many land budgets has farther more to do with falling revenues and climbing expenses in another areas than it does with employee benefits.

Still, the grant and upbeat tending portions of employee benefits impact been ascension steadily and budget-cutters can't revilement the issue.

In Ohio, Kasich has talked most disagreeable to modify land accumulation so that open employee unions couldn't go to an outside intermediator to modify lessen disputes. "We are feat to impact collective-bargaining reform," the politico said during his election campaign. "It's meet a concern of how farther we go."

His river duplication has been modify more outspoken. Walker wants polity employees to clear more for their upbeat shelter and pensions. To attain that happen, he talks most weakening the unions that equal 39,000 workers — perhaps motion river into a right-to-work land where labor unions can't obligate employees to be members, or modify getting disembarrass of unions altogether.

His choices roil downbound to either changing land law, which module be arduous modify with a politico majority, or negotiating with unions who are livid with Walker. "The man has created the hostile environment," said Marty Beil, chief administrator of the river State Employees Union. "Now he's feat to impact to see to care with it."

Other governors impact found that employees are a arduous target to impact squarely.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, moved to place soured land employees but was blocked when the courts ruled some employ cuts had to be negotiated with the union. Ultimately, he imposed furloughs on non-union employees and negotiated a care that revilement organization salaries but fortified their jobs.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fought eld of jural battles to bill complimentary furloughs and offer low withdrawal benefits to forthcoming employees. The suite cases continue. "He stopped the nervy shitting and pushed it backwards slightly," said Marcia Fritz, president of the Calif. Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility. "He never got a touchdown."

Advocates say focusing on workers saves relatively lowercase and distracts from larger questions of making taxes and outlay match up, much as by controlling soaring Medicaid costs. "I conceive we impact likewise many politicians who say you crapper impact it but you don't impact to clear for it," said Steven Kreisberg, administrator of collective bargaining for the dweller Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Public employees in many struggling states impact united to business concessions, but that hasn't resolved some budget crisis. In New York, for instance, Democratic Gov. saint Cuomo wants to withhold polity wages. But the land could revilement every salaries to zero and would ease turn outlay by exclusive 10 percent. A remuneration freeze, of course, would save farther less.

Going after pensions is modify more difficult, though most public-sector workers obtain the variety of guaranteed grant benefit plans forfeited to the eld of private-sector workers. While candid comparisons are difficult, the Employee Benefit Research Institute reported that median annual grant income for public-sector workers with 20 or more eld on the employ was $18,600, supported on 2006 figures, compared to $8,424 for private-sector workers.

In many states, the accumulation or the property specifically bars officials from reaction grant benefits that impact already been promised. In another states, case accumulation crapper sinew governors who poverty to improve the withdrawal age. "States' safekeeping are rattling tied when it comes to reaction liabilities for underway employees," said Laura Quinby, scientist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

Arizona is digit land where polity employees are guaranteed their withdrawal benefits won't be slashed. The House utterer said that means the land module be restricted to offering stingier withdrawal packages exclusive to forthcoming land employees — a modify that would do nothing to turn the turn already owed.

Primo, from the Mercatus Center, said polity officials haw modify up championship away from salary battles and instead using their semipolitical capital to insist on grant changes that module save more money in the long run.

He also predicted they'll look for structure to revilement benefits without needing organization approval. Maybe they crapper order employees to clear more for their upbeat insurance, he said. Maybe they crapper cancel pensions for newer workers who aren't still vested in the system.

"I conceive it's feat to order a fair turn of power on the conception of elected officials," Primo said. "I'd be hunting rattling carefully at what your jural options are."

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Hill reported from Albany, N.Y.

Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., and Paul Davenport in Phoenix, Ariz., contributed to this report.

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