State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa has urged Gov. Linda Lingle to consider alternatives to her furlough plans, including a 5 percent across-the-board pay cut for state workers or one furlough day a month for the next two years, instead of three days.

In a letter to the governor on Tuesday, Hanabusa said the alternatives would help the state close the budget deficit but would not be as devastating as the governor's proposal. She also warned that the governor's plans could result in disparate treatment for state workers, which the governor has tried to avoid by making the furloughs as uniform as possible.

Hanabusa's suggestions would save the state less money than Lingle's furlough plans, but are based on an alternative estimate of the budget deficit that is lower than what the governor projects.

"I understand and can appreciate the need to maintain a negotiating position with collective bargaining. However, this is not the time," wrote Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha), a labor attorney. "The public worker unions have said that they are willing to share in the pain."

A Lingle spokesman said the governor had only received Hanabusa's letter yesterday and had no immediate response.

A Circuit Court judge is scheduled to hear legal challenges this morning to Lingle's furlough plans filed by public-sector labor unions. The governor has said she would resort to mass layoffs if her furlough plans are blocked.

The University of Hawai'i Professional Assembly, meanwhile, filed a complaint yesterday against the university with the Hawai'i Labor Relations Board seeking to keep existing contract provisions in place during labor negotiations. The Hawai'i Government Employees Association has also contended in court filings that provisions of its existing contract should remain because the union and the state have signed a negotiating timetable that extends through December.

Union contracts expired on Tuesday.

State House and Senate leaders have been in an unusual spot. The balanced two-year budget they passed at the end of last session fell apart after the state Council on Revenues lowered the state's revenue forecast last month. Lingle responded by ordering furloughs and equivalent spending cuts to save $688 million and help close an estimated $730 million deficit through June 2011.

Many majority Democrats have been cautious about publicly criticizing the Republican governor's furlough plans for fear of being accused of meddling in the collective bargaining process. But there has also been some internal feedback that Democrats appear disengaged by not getting involved and suggesting potential solutions.

Union leaders have said that the governor and lawmakers should consider using money from the state's hurricane relief fund and rainy day fund and temporarily increasing the general-excise tax to help close the deficit.

Garrett Toguchi, chairman of the state Board of Education, and J.N. Musto, UHPA's executive director, have encouraged lawmakers to reconvene in special session to address the budget.

But Hanabusa and state House Speaker Calvin Say, D-20th (St. Louis Heights, Palolo Valley, Wilhelmina Rise), say there are no plans to reconvene.

Say and others have tried to ease some of the urgency over the budget, saying that the immediate financial challenge was to make it through the fiscal year that ended on Tuesday. The governor and lawmakers do not have to act immediately on a deficit projected over the next two years, Say said.

Hanabusa, in her letter to Lingle, said there should be alternatives to "simply furloughing all employees" and warned of unintended consequences.

Hanabusa cited, for example, the potential impact of furloughs on state workers who, because of the loss in pay, may qualify for unemployment benefits. She said shutting down the state Capitol for three days a month could add 12 days to the legislative session and increase costs.

"Taking into consideration the unintended consequences of the furloughs and how devastating three furlough days can be, I ask that you consider the across-the-board pay cut with the unions or, alternatively, take only one furlough day a month," she wrote.

State Senate Majority Leader Gary Hooser, D-7th (Kaua'i, Ni'ihau), said perhaps it is time for the governor, House and Senate lawmakers, and union leaders to meet and discuss a compromise.

"The fear and uncertainty that is out there in the community with our workers is not healthy," he said. "I would like to find some way to break this stalemate."