State workers, brace yourselves for another furlough day.
The governor's latest budget proposal assumes almost 20 percent in employee wage cuts: 15 percent from the three-day furloughs that started this month, plus another 5 percent across-the-board whack.
"Three days (furlough) plus the 5 percent," said H.D. Palmer, Department of Finance spokesman when asked Wednesday to clarify the governor's budget proposal.
The Legislature won't go for the pay cut, but the governor can then add a furlough day for reasons we'll explain.
State employee union leaders say Schwarzenegger is abusing his authority and stiffing state workers once again.
"It's outrageous," said Bruce Blanning, executive director of the state's engineers' union. "He's trying to destroy public service by trying to destroy those who provide those services."
Yvonne Walker, president of the 95,000-member Service Employees International Union Local 1000, said, "He's using bully tactics and playing state workers as pawns."
Last May the governor proposed a 5 percent cut on top of what were then twice-monthly furloughs. The proposal was dead from the start; everyone knew the Democratic-controlled Legislature would never go for it. "State workers," as one Capitol Republican staffer told me, "are their constituents."
Sure enough, the Legislature defeated the plan in June. Schwarzenegger followed the "defeat" with a new executive order to add a third furlough day, getting the 5 percent cut in state worker wages that he wanted.
He could do that because a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled in February that Schwarzenegger's emergency powers let him treat the government's fiscal meltdown like a Southern California wildfire by claiming broad emergency authority – including the power to furlough state workers.
The legal hurdle to exercising that power is proving there's a crisis. The Legislature's bickering while the state's budget ruptures helps. Its rejection of a pay cut is even better.
So this pay cut won't fly, either. Then the governor can add another furlough day. The 20 percent cut will bankrupt some of the 235,000 state workers affected.
"The two-day furlough wiped out their discretionary income. Three days will push many state workers over the edge," Blanning said. "Four days cuts pay so low that some people will have to leave state service to survive."
The unions are fighting furloughs on several legal fronts, but those cases could take months or years. Many state workers taking a 20 percent pay cut won't have that long.
Call The Bee's Jon Ortiz, (916)321-1043. Read his blog, The State Worker, at sacbee.com/blogs.
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