AUGUSTA – The old 5 o’clock whistle could blow for the last time for a big chunk of the state work force in the not distant future.

According to the state Bureau of Human Resources, nearly 28 percent of state workers will be eligible to retire within five years. According to the state Bureau of Human Resources, nearly 28 percent of state workers will be eligible to retire within five years. Additionally, about half of the 600 supervisory level employees described as top management could leave within that time.

Gov. Angus King’s top aide, Kay Rand, refers to the potential consequences of the aging of the state work force as a “brain drain.”

Director Don Wills of the state Bureau of Human Resources agrees.

“That’s not a bad term,” he said.

Looking 10 years down the road, the prospects for mass departures are sharper still.

“Over 6,300 state workers are either over 50 years of age, or have at least 15 years of service,” Wills wrote in a memo responding to questions from The Associated Press.

“Assuming retirement eligibility of age 60 or 25 years of service, all of these workers [about one half of the entire work force] will be eligible to retire within 10 years,” Wills wrote.

Departmental turnover of state employees is “basically on average” with jurisdictions nationwide, Wills said.

Turnover rates for fiscal years 1998, 1999 and 2000 were 9.37 percent, 9.93 percent and 11.74 percent, according to a bureau analysis.

Both Wills and Carl Leinonen, the executive director of the Maine State Employees Association, suggest that a robust economy offering plentiful job opportunities may have driven the turnover rate up in recent years.

“With the tight job market, people are looking elsewhere,” Leinonen said.

The challenge for the state, officials say, is to make employment attractive for veteran workers and potential hires alike, in management and on the line.

The looming retirements would deprive state government of “people here who know the complexity of the issues,” said Commissioner Janet Waldron of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services.

“So when they go, …” Waldron added, before breaking off the sentence with a shake of the head.

“Many of the ‘baby boomers’ are preparing for retirement and there simply will not be enough workers to replace the lost knowledge and talent that the baby boomer generation will take with them when they retire,” Wills said in the Bureau of Human Resources’ most recent annual report.

“Much more attention must be paid to the external market with which state government must compete for talent. A greater focus on speed and flexibility in our recruitment practices and programs will be necessary,” he said.

Over the past decade, according to the bureau analysis, the average age of the state work force has been increasing steadily, from just under 42 in 1992 to 44.25 now.

Just under 50 percent of the state work force is age 45 or older. Nearly 30 percent are age 50 or above.

Wills said that on average state workers retire around age 57.

“It is an area where the employees and the administration are jointly concerned about the ability to hire folks and keep good folks,” Leinonen said.

Leinonen said the answer involves restructuring the state’s job classification and compensation system.

“What we have now is too rigid,” he said.

State officials say the maturation of the work force within Maine government is a part of the aging of baby boomers around the nation and throughout all sectors of society.

“We tend to be a bit older than the nation at large,” Wills said.

Leinonen said past state responses to budgetary pressures in hard times drove out some younger workers.

“This is skewed by the early to mid-’90s and all the layoffs that occurred,” he said.

Tallying employees by department, the Bureau of Human Services pegged the number of state workers at 12,711 in fiscal 1998, 13,150 in fiscal 1999 and 13,269 in fiscal 2000.