A Sacramento Superior Court judge will consider Wednesday whether to expedite review of the state's lawsuit against controller John Chiang to force him to slash pay for more than 170,000 state employees.
Judge Timothy Frawley will decide whether the case deserves expedited review, though he will not consider the merits of the suit Wednesday, according to state Department of Personnel Administration spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley.
The court date comes only two days before Chiang is scheduled to begin printing checks for the August pay period.
Schwarzenegger wants Chiang to pay about 136,000 employees the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour and cut salary for about 37,000 additional workers in their next paychecks. Workers would receive their full back pay when the state enacts a budget.
The Republican governor has exempted nearly 60,000 workers in 14 departments whose duties involve health and safety or generating revenues for the state.
Chiang, a Democrat, has vowed to pay all workers their full salaries because he disputes the governor's legal reasoning, and says the state's decades-old computer system cannot process the wide-scale pay reduction in time.
Schwarzenegger's Department of Personnel Administration filed a lawsuit last week to force Chiang to comply with the reduced-wage order. DPA asked for an expedited review, citing the controller's imminent August check printing schedule.
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