A new survey from the Center for State and Local Government Excellence finds that more than half of state and local governments still have a pay freeze and are adjusting retirement and health care benefits, but the pace of layoffs has slowed compared with last year.

More than half of state and local governments still have a pay freeze and are adjusting retirement and health care benefits. At the same time, the pace of layoffs has slowed with 28 percent reporting layoffs this year compared with 40 percent last year.

Key findings:

• The top workforce issue cited in 2012 is the public perception of government workers.
• Issues that continue to rank as most important are retaining staff for core services, addressing employee morale and workload problems, staff development, and reducing employee health care costs.

Read more and download the publication here.