Most calls about 4-day week are questions

Opponents of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s recently instituted four-day workweek for state employees outnumbered supporters by a 4-to-1 margin since July, records of calls to his office show.

Results of a documents request by the Deseret News found that just seven people contacted the governor's office to say they favored the one-year pilot program that took effect on Aug. 4 as a way to save on energy costs.

During the same two-month time period — beginning soon after the governor announced the shortened schedule this summer and ending late last month — 28 people called or e-mailed to complain about shutting down government offices on Fridays.

Huntsman spokeswoman Lisa Roskelley said she wasn't surprised by the numbers.

"Certainly, I think that people generally call when they're upset or frustrated about something more often than when they're happy with something government is doing," Roskelley said. "Change is always hard."

But Utahns may be getting used to state government's new hours, Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. "You can see the calls have gone significantly down each week," Roskelley said.

For every Todd Kap of Draper, who told the governor's office that while the four-day workweek "has obviously garnered some negativity, the overall response has been positive and at least you are trying to make a difference," there were four Rebecca Kirbys of West Valley City.

"I believe the change is a disservice to your constituents," Kirby wrote in an e-mail. While she said she appreciated the effort to cut energy costs, "You could see more substantial savings by trimming staff and revising processes to make the state run more efficiently."

Paul Jones e-mailed to say he was strongly opposed to the new schedule. "You need to treat the employees with respect. This new program totally ignores the needs of employees with children, in favor of energy savings for the buildings. This is wrong."

Jeremy Dunn of Orem wrote in an e-mail that the four-day work week "is the worst idea I've heard in a very long time. In an age where business owners have to increase service hours to compete, you do the opposite."

A number of the complaints said some Utahns can only access government services on Fridays because of their own work schedules and suggested staggered schedules for employees.

But Huntsman's intent in implementing the four-day workweek was to be able to shut down as many buildings as possible on Fridays, to trim an estimated $3 million annually from the state's utility bills.

Still, the vast majority of calls and e-mails logged by the governor's office were categorized as questions about the four-day workweek. Among those 389 callers was one who had been told incorrectly that Huntsman's executive order also applied to private businesses in Utah.

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