Only 13 percent of Californians polled recently said they approve of the performance of the state Legislature. The sumptuous benefit packages lawmakers provide for their staffs, as detailed in The Bee on Sunday and Monday, may not be the main reason for the Legislature's plummeting popularity, but they clearly don't help. If nothing else, lawmakers' outsized largesse to their own staffs is an indication of how clueless they are to the world around them.
As the state's budget crisis deepened, and the Legislature was forced to make deep cuts in spending for education, prisons and health and welfare, lawmakers hardly touched the pay and benefits for the 2,100 or so staffers who work directly for them.
Pension and health benefits for all state employees are generous, but legislative staff benefits exceed them. The examples reporter Jim Sanders listed are jaw-dropping to the average Californian.
Senate and Assembly staffers receive health insurance for their families and themselves with monthly premiums paid entirely by the state. Five of seven health care plans available require no employee co-pays. Up until last year, both Senate and Assembly employees and their families could get up to two pairs of glasses a year. The Senate cut that back to one pair this year. Dental care is free. In addition, employees and their dependents can get up to 80 percent of their orthodontic care paid for.
And, the richest benefit of all – after age 50 with just five years of service, Senate and Assembly employees can retire with lifetime health benefits for themselves and their spouse.
These are extraordinarily generous benefits, not available to most other state employees and virtually unheard of in the private sector.
Despite deep cuts in every department of state government, legislative belt-tightening has been anemic at best. Hiring and pay freezes were announced but have not been strictly observed. Senate staffing remains largely unchanged over the last two years. Spending for both houses has risen over the last five difficult budget cycles.
Defenders of generous benefits note correctly that unlike regular state employees, legislative staffers have no job security or civil service protection. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg says good benefits are the price the state pays to keep talented and experienced legislative employees that inexperienced, term-limited legislators rely on.
Still, in hard times, legislators have to lead by example. By retaining over-the-top benefits for their own staffs even while cutting vital state programs, the Legislature has set an example, a very bad one.
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