HONOLULU -- Just a day after public unions made an offer of 5-percent pay cuts to solve the state's budget crisis, state departments gathered to begin working on a counter offer.

State officials returned to the state Department of Human Resources and Development, less than 24 hours after they heard their first official offer Monday from the unions of a 5-percent wage cut.

State negotiators went behind closed doors for an hour and a half meeting.

Sources said no final decisions were made.

Afterward, state Attorney General Mark Bennett spoke to KITV.

"We had a very productive meeting," Bennett said.

The governor's Human Resources Director Marie Laderta stuck to the same "talking points."

"We had a very, very productive meeting. That's all I can say," Laderta said.

Besides representatives of the governor, all the other state employers attended the midday meeting, including officials from the Department of Education, the University of Hawaii system, including community colleges, the state Judiciary and the state's Hawaii Health Systems Corp., which runs 13 health facilities on all islands, including Maui Memorial Medical Center.

The state employers still have to decide what counter offer will be their final offer. Then they have to meet with the state's four mayors to see if they will support the proposal. Only then can they present the offer to the unions in negotiations.

Gov. Linda Lingle earlier proposed furloughs amounting to at least a 14-percent pay cut, which would erase what she said is a state budget shortfall of about $786 million.

The public worker unions said the deficit is actually several hundred million dollars lower than that, which is why the unions said their 5 percent pay cut offer is enough to significantly reduce the shortfall.