From our sister blog, Capitol Alert, this story from reporter Jim Sanders:

It's official: The proposal is in writing and set for a vote -- a 5 percent pay cut for Gov. Jerry Brown, all California legislators and state constitutional officers from controller to treasurer to Board of Equalization member.

Click here to read more.

In a letter to members this afternoon, SEIU Local 1000 officials said that they are preparing to negotiate with Gov. Jerry Brown's administration early next month, spurred by his proposal to put state workers on a 4/9.5 workweek that would cut their hours and pay by 5 percent.

The chairs of Local 1000's nine bargaining units said that whatever concessions they negotiate will be put in a "side letter" agreement. That would avoid reopening the local's contracts.

Ahead of that, union officials are soliciting savings ideas to offer as alternatives to Brown's furloughs. Next week the local will conduct an online survey of members.

The union's bargaining team will review all of that information ahead of negotiations scheduled to start June 9. Whatever agreement is reached at the table will go to the rank and file for a ratification vote.

Here's the union's rationale for bargaining cuts:

"As the elected leaders of all nine bargaining units within Local 1000, we agreed that it's better to be aggressive participants in the effort to find solutions to achieve savings. We intend to be part of the action, not acted upon.

"We could have said 'no,' and demanded that the governor honor our contract. By staying engaged, we minimize the potential for a huge number of layoffs and even deeper cuts in vital services, like education and the programs that serve California's most needy."

Here's the entire letter:

CalPERS announced today that it will host retirement planning events in Sacramento, Anaheim and Santa Clara this summer.

Representatives from CalPERS, the Social Security Administration, the state's Savings Plus Program, ScholarShare college savings program and several employee and retiree organizations will be on hand. The events also include workshops on health and retirement benefits, service credit, Social Security and other pertinent topics.

CalPERS members can register via "My Education" area of the my|CalPERS member website at my.calpers.ca.gov.

Here are the dates, times and locations:

Sacramento
Aug. 10 - 11
9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Sacramento Convention Center
1400 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95817

Anaheim
Aug. 17 - 18
9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Sheraton Park Hotel
1855 South Harbor Blvd.
Anaheim, CA 92802

Santa Clara
Aug. 30 (one day only)
9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Santa Clara Marriott
2700 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054

PHOTO: Big Stock Photo / Sacramento Bee file

From Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Jim Sanders' report this morning:

One week after Gov. Jerry Brown proposed slicing state workers' pay by 5 percent, the Democratic governor and legislators find themselves targeted for a "share the pain" salary cut.

Members of California's Citizens Compensation Commission said Monday that a pay-cut proposal for statewide officeholders will be on the table when the panel meets May 31.

Click here to read the entire story, which includes lawmakers' reactions to the idea.

The Bee's state pay database guru Phillip Reese has run the numbers on what Gov. Jerry Brown's four-day, 9.5-hours-per-day workweek would do to the Sacramento region's economy.

The annual impact: $230 million in wages taken out of circulation.

Click here to read the entire story.

Here's an open letter that job steward and SEIU Local 1000 DLC President Thomas Lee Perine sent Wednesday to the members he represents. We're posting it here unedited and with his permission:

Dear DLC 790 Executive Board Members, Job Stewards and Activists -

Tonight is the Local 1000 Council monthly conference call. I will be on the call.

I intend to voice opposition to the forced pay cut and work hour proposals that have been floated in the media recently. President Walker was quoted as saying that a majority of our members would support this proposal. Based on the feedback I've been receiving from the members we represent, a majority of members do not support this idea.

What I would like to see is an expansion of the current voluntary personal leave program. Currently our members can opt-in to one day (8 hours) of personnel leave with a resulting ~5% reduction in pay and no effect on retirement. I have been participating in the program since it was first offered years ago.

My proposal would be that our members would be offered the option to purchase up to two additional days per month (up to 16 hours) with no option for the State to deny the leave purchase if a member chooses to opt-in and no change to retirement for those who participate. The "no denial" clause is important because otherwise many agencies will deny requests based on "operational need" and there will be no opportunity for cost savings.

This proposal will protect our members who cannot afford any more pay sacrifices and those who do not have an option to change their work hours because of family or other personal obligations or desires.

Your thoughts are important to me. What do you think? What are you hearing from our members?

Please note that I have shared this email message with the rest of our union leadership.

I am confident that we can all work together to find a solution that does not put additional undo hardships on state employees while we yet again do our part to help the State during these days of unprecedented budget crises due to the failures of Wall Street and unchecked corporate greed.

In solidarity,
Thomas Lee Perine, Job Steward &
President DLC 790 SEIU Local 1000
Department of Child Support Services

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, met with reporters today and talked about Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to furlough state workers two hours per week.

Brown's plan also lengthens the state workday to 9.5 hours and shortens the workweek to four days. The changes would reduce employees' hours and pay by 5 percent and save the general fund some $401 million ($839 million all funds).

On cooperation between the unions and the governor to come up with a plan:

Just look at the experience in the Schwarzenegger years. ... When they tried to do it unilaterally, what was the end result? Lawsuits, a lot of uncertainty. The better and best way to accomplish the needed savings is to work with the people affected, and that's already going on."

On SEIU Local 1000's position:

"It would be one thing if SEIU Local 1000 was saying hell no and fighting the governor, but they're not doing that. They're actually appreciating the fact that the administration has reached out to them and that they are being brought in."

On the impact to his district and his assessment of the governor's moves:

"It's certainly hard on a lot of my constituents, The process by which the administration is trying to get to that goal, the money goal, I think has been very constructive so far."

On how the issue will play for the November election:

"You want to go into November with as much solidarity as possible."

PHOTO: Darrell Steinberg / 2011 Sacramento Bee file, Hector Amezcua

As our story in today's Bee notes, it's not clear whether rank-and-file state workers will be able to vote on any scheduling changes or other concessions that their representatives bargain to reach the payroll savings target in Gov. Jerry Brown's budget proposal.

Brown wants unions to take a 5-percent pay reduction with a commensurate cut in work hours each month to trim $401 million from the general fund's employee costs and $839 million from all funds in fiscal 2012-13. The governor's plan includes putting most employees on a 4-day, 9.5 hours-per-day workweek.

State law doesn't require a membership vote if a union reaches a side agreement with Brown. The associations' various bylaws, practices and processes determine whether they would issue ballots. Some union leaders also could seek guidance by surveying their members without a formal vote.

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

Our story in today's Bee looks at Gov. Jerry Brown's prosposal to cut $401 million in general fund employee costs ($839 million all funds) by putting state employees on a 4/9.5 weekly furlough schedule.

We inerviewed several folks who didn't get into the final version of our story, including Bruce Blanning, executive director of the state's engineers' union and Tim Yeung, a Sacramento-based labor attorney.

Here are some highlights of our discussions with both men:

Gov. Jerry Brown is suggesting state workers go to a four-day, 9.5 hours-per-day workweek to cut about $839.1 million in costs for fiscal 2012-13. What do you think of the idea?

Gov. Jerry Brown said today that his administration will bargain with labor to get the 5 percent, $839.1 million savings from employee compensation costs that his May budget revision proposes.

Here's what the governor said during this morning's press conference when asked how he would hit the savings target:

"Negotiations. We have contracts and we'll look at a variety of ways (to make savings). The state employees particularly have come forward some very imaginative ideas. They've been helpful. They've been willing to step up to the plate even though they represent some people who are not paid all that much. So we will work for a 5 percent cut. And we're going to figure it out. But that will be the financial value of the changes we make and it will be mutually arrived at."

In a memo to members today, SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker said that she was consulted about Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to cut state employees' pay and that she drew a line at imposing unpaid time off on workers.

"First let me say that I have made it clear that furloughs are not on the table," Walker wrote.

She said that she has had several meetings with the administration and is continuing talks.

"Under the previous governor, our input was not sought, in fact, it was dismissed. Under Gov. Brown, we have a seat at the table," Walker's memo said. "We have offered our own proposals to deal with this crisis."

Among the suggestions: cutting private vendor contracts, eliminating the use of retired annuitants and, "if necessary, implementing a four-day, 40-hour work week."

PHOTO: Yvonne Walker / Sacramento Bee 2008, Brian Baer

Our story in today's Bee fleshes out Wednesday's news that Gov. Jerry Brown has told labor leaders that his May budget revision on Monday will include a cut to state workers' compensation. He's asked the unions to help figure out how to get the savings.

If you haven't read the story already, check it out and then participate in our poll:

State workers' compensation is back on the budget chopping block.

Brown administration officials met with the state employee union leaders last week, according to sources familiar with the meetings, to warn them that the next version of the governor's budget will include an unspecified cut in employee costs up to 10 percent.

The administration in January estimated that California is confronting a $9.2 billion deficit through 2012-13, but a recent state analysis concluded the actual gap is considerably more.

The sources, who declined to talk on the record because the administration asked all involved to keep the discussions secret, said Brown told the unions he was seeking $750 million in state employee cost savings for fiscal 2012-13.

The sources said the Brown administration asked union leaders to come up with ways to make the reduction -- pay cuts or higher benefit contributions, for instance.

Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer said, "The governor has already indicated that more difficult reductions will be required," because the state's budget deficit has grown since Brown issued his first budget proposal in January.

"The details of those reductions will be detailed in the May Revision," Palmer said.

The governor could order wholesale layoffs, but the civil service process usually takes at least six months and the savings often fall short of expectations.

Furloughs are an option only if the Senate and Assembly authorize Brown to execute them, because the courts have ruled the policy falls under the Legislature's authority to set wages and working conditions. That seems unlikely, given the Democratic majority in the statehouse.

Other cost savings such as outright pay cuts, higher employee contributions to pension or health benefits, would need to be bargained.

Last month Brown recently extended the contracts of four unions with deals set to expire in July. Two of the extensions covering about a total 16,000 psychiatric technicians and operating engineers increased the state's health benefits costs 9.5 percent for those workers.

With the four extensions in place, the contracts covering roughly all 180,000 unionized state workers expire in July 2013.

Brown is set to deliver the budget revision on Monday.

The Senate this morning approved a measure that mandates the state report the costs of pay raises for supervisors and managers when analyzing union labor contracts.

Much of the time, managers and supervisors get similar employment terms to those negotiated for the employees they supervise. For example, if SEIU Local 1000 negotiates a 2 percent pay raise for its members, the related managers get the same.

But not always. The Department of Personnel Administration (and soon the new California Department of Human Resources) negotiates labor pacts and also sets the pay for excluded employees. By law, it must issue a fiscal analysis of what the negotiated contracts cost, but the department isn't required to do the same for related management compensation.

Senate Bill 1113 would mandate CalHR include analyses of the financial obligation for related excluded employees. The California Correctional Supervisors Organization, which is sponsoring the bill, says the measure would make employee costs more transparent.

Early versions of the bill also required the state to "address salary compaction and parity concerns for excluded employees," but that language was struck from the legislation the Senate OK'd today on a bipartisan 36-0 vote.

SB 1113, authored by Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, now goes to the Assembly.

The Legislative Analyst's Office figures that four union contracts that Gov. Jerry Brown has agreed to extend for one year will "maintain or modestly increase the state's costs for employee compensation."

The nonpartisan LAO looked at so-called "rollover agreements" with the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (Bargaining Unit 16) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (Unit 19) and concluded that they don't cost the state more than the deals that expire in July.

The state's cost for employees covered by the International Union of Operating Engineers (Unit 12) and the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians (Unit 18), however, will grow by an estimated 9.5 percent due to increased health benefit costs. Those contracts have clauses requiring the state to cover increases in health coverage.

The contracts together cover roughly 24,000 state workers, including equipment operators, social service professionals, psychiatric technicians and doctors.

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Units 12, 16, 18, and 19

A bill that would cap California state employees' pay at no more than what the governor earns cleared the Senate Public Employee and Retirement Committee today on a 3-1 vote.

Senate Bill 1368, authored by Sen. Joel Anderson, R-Alpine, would limit the annual pay of state officers and employees, including overtime, to the governor's salary, currently $173,987 per year.

The measure exempts current salaries set by contracts but requires the limitations to take effect for those employees once those deals expire. Anderson's bill also includes exemptions for public safety workers and judges.

Republican Sens. Ted Gaines of Rocklin and Mimi Walters of Laguna Niguel and Democratic Sen. Juan Vargas of San Diego voted for the measure. Sen. Alex Padilla D-Los Angeles, opposed it. Chino Democratic Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod abstained.

The measure now moves to the Senate Governmental Organization Committee for a hearing Tuesday.

CalSTRS, which has sponsored a bill that would allow it to boost pay for its chief financial officer and chief operating officer well beyond what the governor earns, has opposed the measure.

Related posts:
Anderson bill would cap state worker pay at Jerry Brown's salary
The State Worker: Linking state pay cap to governor is tricky exercise
Column Extra: Who earns more than Jerry Brown?
Bill allows big pay hike for two CalSTRS executive jobs

PHOTO: Sen. Joel Anderson, R-Alpine, on the Senate floor in 2011. / Courtesy Joel Anderson.

A bill scheduled for a committee hearing today would cap the compensation for two jobs at the California State Teachers' Retirement System at 150 percent of what the governor earns, but the new ceiling is twice what the positions currently earn.

Assembly Bill 1735, which is sponsored by CalSTRS, is in front of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. The measure expands the list of jobs for which the fund's board can set compensation to include chief operating officer and chief financial officer.

The fund says it needs the flexibility to compete for candidates outside of government. The bill caps what CalSTRS board could pay at one-and-a-half times the govenor's salary, currently about $174,000 per year.

"Given the new ceiling of $260,000 per annum, this bill allows CalSTRS to double existing salaries," an Appropriations staff analysis says. "The actual costs will depend on the compensation packages developed by the Teachers' Retirement Board."

CalSTRS says that paying more to get the most-skilled executives will save big bucks because it will be able to hire and hold better-qualified managers who make key business decisions.

The fund has said that it needs an infusion of money to meet its long-term pension obligations. In February, it reported assets of $152 billion, sustaining its pension fund for 856,000 public school teachers and their families in California's 1,600 school districts, county education offices and community college districts.

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

The CalPERS computer system story in today's Bee draws from an item on the agenda of the fund's Pension and Health Benefits Committee, which is meeting this morning.

Here's the report on the system. Click here to watch the committee session live online, starting at 9 a.m. or after the Finance and Administration Committee ends its hearing, whichever is later.
CalPERS Workload Inventory

As we reported earlier today, four unions representing roughly 24,000 state workers have reached agreements with Gov. Jerry Brown to extend the terms of their current contracts, which are due to expire in a few months.

The agreements cover state employees in bargaining units 12 (skilled crafts workers), 16 (doctors and dentists), 18 (psychiatric technicians) and 19 (health and social services professionals).

Open a larger view of the contract extension letters embedded below by clicking the "full screen" button at the bottom of the document display.

Contract extentions for bargaining units 12, 16, 18 and 19

The Senate Public Employment & Retirement Committee is scheduled to hear several bills Monday, including three measures of interest to state employees:

SB 955 (Fran Pavley): Authorizes pension boards to give investment priority to in-state infrastructure projects over out-of-state infrastructure projects.

SB 1234 (Kevin de León): Establishes a guaranteed retirement savings system for private-sector workers. (Click here for a recent report on the measure.)

SB 1368 (Joel Anderson): Caps state employee pay at what the governor earns, currently about $174,000. (Click here for a recent State Worker column about the measure.)

The committee hearing is scheduled to start at 2 p.m. in the Capitol's Room 2040.

PHOTO CREDIT: California State Capitol / Sacramento Bee file, Rob Ferris

Are state workers dragging down state budgets around the nation? Or have public employees and their compensation packages become convenient political scapegoats?

A year ago the PBS news show "Need to Know" took on what it calls "one of the most contentious arguments in the news today." We ran across the report this morning while surveying state worker news. Although the item ran on March 11, 2011, the topic remains relevant today.

Watch Union Salaries and State Budgets on PBS. See more from Need to Know.

A reader called on Thursday to strongly disagree with this week's State Worker column, which looked at a bill that would cap state pay at what the governor earns, currently about $174,000 per year.

The column suggested that the cap idea doesn't acknowledge key differences between what motivates people to aspire to the executive and what motivates them to become, say, a state university president, CalPERS investment manager or a nuclear physicist.

The caller contended that the state doesn't need to compete for talented individuals to run departments, conduct nuclear research, manage investments or to perform other high-level, high-skill jobs. Public service and love of the work, he said, is a reward in itself. Plenty of competent folks would line up for jobs that he said currently overpay incumbents.

And anyone who passed on a job because they wanted more money? "The state doesn't need them," the caller said.

What do you think? How much should money matter to public servants? Do some care about it less than others? Take our poll and leave your comments:

This from The Bee's Kevin Yamamura on our sister blog, Capitol Alert:

Legislative Republicans rolled out a budget plan Thursday that relies on cutting state worker pay, eliminating affordable housing funds and using pots of money dedicated for mental health and childhood development.

Republicans believe their plan eliminates the state's $9.2 billion deficit without new taxes and preserves the same amount of funding for education that existed last year. They say it undercuts Gov. Jerry Brown's argument that voters must pass higher taxes in November to spare schools from deep reductions.

Read the rest of his report by clicking here.

With just 400 to 450 words for our weekly State Worker column, most of what we learn each week never sees print. Column Extras give you some of the notes, the quotes and the observations that inform what's published.

Our column in today's fiber/cyber Bee filters the debate over state workers' wages through Senate Bill 1368, which would cap state pay -- including overtime -- at what the governor earns, about $174,000 per year.

So we asked our state worker pay database guru, Phillip Reese, to find out how many state employees would have been affected last year if SB 1368 had been law, and what job classes dominated that pay strata. We also asked him to look at UC system employees (the latest data we have for them is for 2010) to get a sense of how many of them made more than the governor. SB 1368 wouldn't affect them, though, because the UC system is constitutionally protected, but the bill encourages its leaders to conform to the cap.

Here's Phillip's email answering my questions:

About 2,015 civil service, CSU and legislative workers earned base pay over $174,000 in 2011, state controller's data show. Another 2,560 UC employees earned that much in 2010, according to the most recent data available from the UC system. So about 4,500 total -- a number that almost doubles if you look at total pay, which includes overtime, bonuses, etc. (I know Anderson, in his bill, cited "more than 8,000 workers," which is in line with my numbers if looking at total pay, instead of just base pay.)

By far, the largest job class in this group is physicians, mostly working at UC hospitals, state prisons and state mental health facilities. About 2,100 of the 4,500 are doctors, dentists or psychiatrists. Running far behind, but with more than 200 employees making that much, are judges, senior professors and top administrators at myriad agencies.

RELATED POSTS:
Anderson bill would cap state worker pay at Jerry Brown's salary
Steinberg: state worker pay cap bill 'worth considering'

Here's one side of the argument you'll be hearing for the next seven months over the so-called "Stop Special Interest Money Now Act" the political-committee funding measure on the Nov. 7 ballot in California.

"DUES AND DEEP POCKETS: Public-Sector Unions' Money Machine," published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, argues that dues withheld by payroll deduction and paid directly to unions, along with rules that force employees to pay for representation even if they aren't members, gives labor "an abundant and reliable source of money, sparing unions the need to spend resources on recruitment, retention, and fund-raising."

Author Daniel DiSalvo says that means civil service unions have a serious advantage over other groups throwing elbows for government resources.

The Stop Special Interest Money Now Act would, among other things, prohibit use of payroll-deducted funds for political purposes by unions, corporations or government contractors. Employees could still contribute to employer or union committees, but they'd have to do it annually and in writing. (Click here to read the measure.)

California unions' will take a big revenue hit if voters approve the as-yet-to-be-numbered proposition, since labor relies on members' payroll deductions to raise money for political spending. Business interests don't.
DUES AND DEEP POCKETS: Public-Sector Unions' Money Machine

As reported last week, Senate Bill 1368 by Republican Sen. Joel Anderson, would set the top salary for state workers and officers at the $173,987 earned by the governor.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, has said the pay cap measure is "worth considering."

What do you think?

We've heard some strong sentiments from phone callers and email correspondents today about the James Ward case covered in today's State Worker column and companion blog post.

By that (extremely unscientific) measure, opinions are split 50-50.

If you haven't yet, check out the reporting and documentation about the prison chief dentist's fight to get his job back, then take our (extremely unscientific) poll:

From The Bee's Dale Kasler:

CalPERS today moved toward reducing its investment forecast by a quarter percentage point, a move that would cost the state's general fund $167 million a year.

Click here to read more.

The recommendation goes to a vote of the full board on Wednesday.

Next week, CalPERS Board of Administration will consider lowering its investment return expectations from the current 7.75 percent to 7.25 percent.

If that happens, pension costs would increase for state and local governments -- and employees would have to pay significantly more for air time after Mar. 15.

CalPERS Pension and Health Benefits Committee will take up the issue on Tuesday. If it accepts Chief Actuary Alan Milligan's recommendation, "The cost for service credit purchases under the present value method is expected to increase between 5 percent and 13 percent when looking at the most common ages at which members currently buy service. Note that the actual increase for some members would be more."

CalPERS members who buy air time before the deadline will get the benefit of the higher rate of return assumption. So will members with a request for an official air time cost estimate submitted to the fund before Friday.

Members have 60 days to purchase air time after receiving a price quote from CalPERS.

"No one (with cost esitimates in the queue) needs to worry," CalPERS spokesman Brad Pacheco told us Friday afternoon. "Those (prices) will be honored."

The benefit costs thousands of dollars. If you're thinking about buying air time, we recommend you start with CalPERS' online service credit calculator before contacting the fund for an official estimate. Click here for more details about how to get a quick ballpark idea of what air time would cost you.

We've embedded the return assumption rate item below. Scroll down to "Impact on Member Calculations," for the discussion of service credit costs.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2620 has proposed extending its expiring labor agreement for one year.

Cliff Leo Tillman Jr., Local 2620's senior business agent, made the initial proposal to Gov. Jerry Brown's administration in a letter (posted below) presented at yesterday's public "sunshine" meeting at the Department of Personnel Administration. State law requires the meetings to publicly air initial labor proposals and allow public comment on them.

AFSCME represents about 4,600 health and social service professionals in Bargaining Unit 19. Its contract expires July 2. State doctors, psychiatric technicians and skilled crafts employees and maintenance staff in three other bargaining units are working under contracts with the same expiration date. None have yet offered a formal initial proposal.

AFSCME's proposal clearly signals the union isn't going to press for pay raises or other big gains while Brown is trying to close a $9.2 billion state budget gap, but detailed talks will still occur behind closed doors later when state and labor negotiators meet.

It's no surprise that AFSCME has proposed extending its current deal. Click here for a recent State Worker column that explains why.
AFSCME contract rollover proposal

The State Worker has received several emails from staff in the five agencies that are paying furlough back wages, all asking the same thing: When will they get their money?

Current and former employees of the Prison Industry Authority, the First 5 California Commission, the California Housing Finance Agency, the California Earthquake Authority and the California State Lottery who lost pay to furloughs are due to get the withheld money. They will not receive interest on the back pay. The payouts won't affect the state's general fund, since it doesn't furnish money to those five agencies.

The State Controller's Office has to cut the checks, so we asked SCO spokesman Jacob Roper when that would happen.

"We are working with other departments to get all the necessary information, and we should have a time frame this week," Roper said in an email this afternoon.

Despite an unprecedented downsizing that has cut jobs and emptied out agency offices around California, the State Compensation Insurance Fund's board of directors has OK'd a new incentive bonus program for employees.

It's not clear how much this will cost State Fund, a quasi-private state agency that provides workers' compensation insurance to businesses, but employees could receive up to 10 percent of their base pay depending on how well they perform. None of the bonus money would come from tax dollars, since State Fund operates solely on policyholders' premiums and investments.

The board approved the Performance Award Program on Feb. 17, about seven weeks after 971 employees in danger of layoffs took an unprecedented severance package that paid them to leave by the end of last year and give up their preferential rights to other state government jobs. The so-called "transition packages" cost State Fund about $30 million.

Even after those employees left, another 700 fund jobs remained on the chopping block as part of a multiyear plan to save $200 million by axing outdated jobs, shuttering offices and consolidating operations.

We asked fund spokeswoman Jennifer Vargen how the new employee bonus program lined up with the agency's push to cut costs. She responded by forwarding an email to staff that explains the program as "an appropriate investment in strengthening and accelerating our transition to a performance-based culture." (Click here to read the entire email.)

The bonuses are contingent on negotiations with union representatives, according to the State Fund staff memo. Here's the board's agenda item concerning the new bonus program:
State Compensation Insurance Fund bonus item on BOD's Feb. 17 agenda

Controller John Chiang today urged the state to scrape up at least a little extra cash to pay down state retiree health and dental benefit costs, which his latest commissioned report pegs at $62.1 billion over 30 years.

The figure, a snapshot of the unfunded health obligations on June 30,2011, represents a 5 percent increase over $59.9 billion identified a year earlier. Actuaries with Gabriel Roeder Smith & Co. had expected an even higher number, but CalPERS' push to trim health costs through a variety of programs, fewer and less expensive claims and lower-than-anticipated use of services have trimmed expenses.

For the most part, the state is covering those costs year to year, paying retiree health bills as they come up. A more prudent course, Chiang said, is to treat the long-term benefit expenses like the state treats pensions: set aside money now, invest it and then use the returns on investments to defray future retiree medical and dental costs.

"Even slight amounts set aside will help lessen the impact on future generations, and ensure that we fulfill our responsibilities to the state workforce and our taxpayers," Chiang said in a press release.

The Bee's state worker pay database has been upgraded with features that give the information more context and provide it more quickly.

The data now include state employee wage histories from calendar 2007 through the end of last year. Clicking on an individual's name pulls up their historical wages graphically in the context of the average pay in their department. Scrolling over the data points in the graph reveals specific info.

The information on the site shows up more quickly than before because The Bee's web developers streamlined its layout and used a Google product that loads faster.

The screen capture above shows the wage history of one elected state worker in the Legislature. Click here to open the pay database page.

A new analysis of the public pension issue suggests that government should move from pensions that increase based on service time to plans that motivate performance with higher pay that then boosts retirement payouts.

"Solving the Public Pension Plan Dilemma," is written by Dan Van Bogaert, a adjunct professor who teaches human resource management courses at UCLA and Brandman University. His analysis appears in the latest volume of the Journal of Pension Benefits.

Bogaert makes several suggestions, from switching to 401(k)-style defined contribution plans and raising the retirement age for full benefits to mandatory pension funding ratios and restricting union bargaining to wages.

He also wants pension formulas that use a "replacement ratio" method that guarantees employees a certain percentage of their working pay when they retire, along with "pay-for-performance" compensation policies that would reward workers for work well done, not merely their years of service.

"The objective is to offer pay and incentivized rewards for performance, rather than offer entitlements connected to tenure. DB plan formulae based primarily on years of service would be de-emphasized, and replaced by incentives tied to pay, as a means to grow pension benefits," Bogaert writes.

(On a related note, Aaron McLear, who often spoke on behalf of California Pension Reform during its now-suspended campaign to qualify a state and local government pension initiative for the November ballot, last week answered the question, "What's next for pension reform?" Click this link to read his thoughts on CBS 13's website.)
Solving the Public Pension Plan Dilemma
IMAGE: www.photobucket.com

The state's quasi-private earthquake insurer is planning to pay furlough back wages to current and former agency employees who lost salary to the policy.

California Earthquake Authority spokeswoman D'Anne Ousley left a voice mail message with The State Worker Wednesday evening, confirming our earlier speculation that the agency would expand furlough lawsuit settlement terms reached with SEIU Local 1000 and California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment to non-represented staff.

The state's four other "off-budget" agencies that settled furloughs with the unions -- the Prison Industry Authority, the First 5 California Commission, the California Housing Finance Agency and the California State Lottery -- announced similar decisions earlier this week.

The repayment plans exclude members of Professional Engineers in California Government and California Association of Professional Scientists because those two associations are pressing on with furlough litigation. Local 1000 and CASE agreed to drop their remaining furlough lawsuits if their members in off-buget departments received furlough back pay.

The Earthquake Authority, a publicly-managed, privately-funded organization that provides
residential earthquake insurance, employs about 25 state civil service workers. Repaying them won't come from the state budget, since the agency operates on money taken in from investments and policyholder premiums.

Solidarity isn't just a union concept.

Nearly all current and former employees of the California Housing Finance Agency and the California State Lottery will receive back pay for wages lost to furloughs, officials now say.

Two other so-called "off-budget" agencies said the same thing earlier today. None of the payments will come from the state's general fund and -- this is key -- the Legislature doesn't appropriate money for their budgets.

Russ Lopez, the Lottery's deputy director of communications. The agency is still figuring out how many of its 644 current employees are in line for furlough back pay. Lottery retirees and other former staff furloughed during their time with the agency will have money coming to them.

The payments "aren't going to happen overnight," Lopez said.

Cal HFA has the same accounting challenge. The agency employs about 260 staff who support its mission to provide home financing and housing programs for low- and moderate-income Californians. Spokeswoman Melissa Flores said that her agency last year set aside "just under $4 million" to cover back payment costs, but hasn't yet determined how many current and former employees were affected by furloughs.

Nine Cal HFA employees represented by Professional Engineers in California Government won't received the back pay, Flores said, because their union is continuing to fight furloughs in court.

The decision by the Lottery and Cal HFA to pay furlough back wages means that four of five off-budget agencies that settled furlough litigation with SEIU Local 100 and the state attorney's union have now said publicly that they are extending the back-pay provisions of the settlements to all their affected employees and retirees.

Click here to read about similar decisions made by leaders at the state's Prison Industry Authority and the First 5 California Commission. The post includes more background on the union settlements that set the precedent for the payments now extended to all employees.

The fifth off-budget agency, the California Earthquake Authority, hasn't yet responded to our inquiry whether it will follow the other four off-budget agencies, but we expect it will.

The agency's attitude about furloughs is well known: During one heated courtroom debate, CEA's lawyer said of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration and furloughs that "These guys are making it up as they go along,"

The State Worker continues to hear from state employees who are complaining that a recent furlough lawsuit settlement between SEIU Local 1000 and the Brown administration isunfair.

The complaints run along two tracks. One comes from managers and supervisors in the five "off-budget" agencies named in the settlement. They're not represented by SEIU or any other unions and aren't part of the furlough agreement.

Callers have pointed out that when a union reaches a contract agreement at the bargaining table that the managers and supervisors attached to those covered workers usually receive similar terms.

The exempt employees calling and emailing us about the furlough settlement think the same should apply here to the furlough back pay agreement. Of course, that decision is up to the Brown administration and/or the agencies.

The other complaint comes from state worker blog users who think that settlement provisions that awarded back pay to rank-and-file workers in five "off budget" agencies unfairly and arbitrarily single out a select few employees for a special benefit.

It's a twist on the complaints we heard when employees working for constitutional officers avoided furlough. Ditto when the courts decided State Compensation Fund Employees were illegally furloughed awarded them back pay.

SEIU has said that it got the most it could from a losing legal hand.

What do you think?

With just 400 to 450 words for our weekly State Worker column, some of what we learn each week never sees print. Column Extras give you the notes, the quotes and the observations that inform what's published.

Today's State Worker column breaks down which unions are in and which are out of the court fight over furloughs. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association and the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association are the latest to lay down arms.

CCPOA spokesman JeVaughn Baker said that the weight of several court decisions favoring the state pushed the union to stop its litigation: "We decided it's in the best interest of the association to focus on other issues."

SEIU Local 1000 and California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment also recently dropped their furlough litigation.

Meanwhile, the state's engineers and scientists are Alameda Superior Court No. RG10630312
Original petition: CCPOA v. Schwarzenegger (requires Java)

CSLEA's request for dismissal, Alameda Superior Court No. RG10507081
Original petition: CSLEA v. Schwarzenegger

CCPOA's request for dismissal: 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Original Complaint: Newton v. Schwarzenegger

The union representing the state's legal professionals and Gov. Jerry Brown's administration have agreed to settle their furlough fight.

The deal returns wages lost to furlough to about 24 members of California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment. In exchange, the union is dropping its last two furlough lawsuits.

The agreement affects only CASE members in five departments that don't receive legislative budget appropriation: First 5 California, the Prison Industry Authority, the California Earthquake Authority, the California Housing Finance Agency and the California State Lottery.

SEIU Local 1000 recently agreed to a similar settlement.

The CASE rationale, which you can read below or by clicking here, can be summed up in five words: "Take what you can get."
CASE memo to members

After combing through the state controller's 2011 payroll data, The Bee's Phillip Reese reports this morning that

State government payroll increased by half a billion dollars last year, even as California cut thousands of state worker jobs, according to a Bee analysis of new data from the Controller's Office.

The payroll increase added about $140 million in wages to the Sacramento economy in 2011, contributing to a budding recovery.

The story, which you can read here, coincides with an update to the state worker pay database.

Click this link to open the pay search engine and scroll down to the notes below the "top salaries" list to understand the sources and boundaries of the data.

California state and local government employees remain among the highest-paid in the nation, according to revised 2010 data released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau.

DATABASE: State worker salaries

Full-time monthly pay for March 2010 in the District of Columbia averaged $5,900, followed by California at $5,774 and New Jersey' s $5,540. Nationally, the average pay for full-time state and local public employees was $4,388 for the March 2010 period sampled by the bureau.

The statistic divides a state's total payroll by the number of full-time equivalent employees. The District of Columbia is included because the data takes into account all government jobs below the federal level. The figures don't account for differences in cost of living.

California, the nation's most-populous state, also claimed about 1.8 million state and local government workers, a tad over one-tenth of the nation's non-federal government employees. Still, the Golden State's ratio of 478 state and local employees per 10,000 residents has been a cellar-dweller for years. The state employee-to-California resident ratio runs at about 110 per 10,000, which is also close to the nation's lowest.

Click here for U.S. Census' revised data summary. The link opens a spreadsheet that extracts the state-by-state totals from around the country.

IMAGE: www.freefoto.com

State workers in six unions will see a pay increase on their February checks in keeping with contract terms bargained in 2010 with former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some managers and supervisors will also see similar pay bumps.

A state analysis of the negotiated pay hikes concluded that they will cost the general fund about $32.3 million and another $28.8 million from other funds for the last six months of the current fiscal year. For fiscal 2012-13 the total cost is an estimated $122.2 million. (Click here for the LAO's report and scroll down to page 16 for a breakdown.)

The state's higher payroll cost has been preceded by years of furloughs and contractual unpaid days off by state workers at all levels, as well as higher employee contributions toward their own retirement accounts.

The top-step increases started taking effect this month, so they will show up on Feb. 1 paychecks issued to employees in the following bargaining units who have been at the top step of their job classes for at least 12 months as of Jan. 1.

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

Our report in today's fiber/cyber Bee notes that California Pension Reform received about $128,000 from donors even before it had an official ballot measure to show potential backers.

(Note: Californians for Retirement Security, which opposes CPR's efforts, told us that it wasn't obligated to report spending or contributions received fighting pension reform until now. Once the CPR measures received title and summary on Monday, the labor coalition or any other group fighting or supporting the proposals' qualification or passage must register and report.)

Here's the list of CPR contributors through Dec. 31 as reported by the campaign to the Secretary of State's office:

This is the last installment in a series of posts looking back at the most-read State Worker blog items in 2011.

The debate over public employee pensions took an unexpected turn last February when the state's Little Hoover Commission suggested what had been the unthinkable: Change pension benefits promised to current state and local government employees.

A locally based research group, Californians for Fiscal Responsibility, had called for changing the guaranteed benefits promised to current employees. But now a government entity was suggesting the legally precarious and politically explosive idea.

The commission said that the public pension crisis is so severe that changing benefits for future workers won't fix it quickly enough. So the bipartisan panel said that state and local governments should freeze their defined-benefit pension promised to current employees and then prospectively place them into cheaper "hybrid" plans that blend smaller traditional pensions with more volatile 401(k)-type savings programs.

Both sides of the pension debate said that such a move would undoubtedly spark litigation. Conventional wisdom holds that pension promises are protected by both state and federal law, but the commission's report said that the principle should be directly tested in the courts.

Here's the link to the most-viewed State Worker blog post of 2011: "Commission's plan rolls back pensions for current workers," which ran on Feb. 24.

Postscript: The idea to alter pensions promised to current employees is dead for now. Two proposed ballot measures to alter pensions offered by another local group, California Pension Reform, and a plan promoted by Gov. Jerry Brown focus on lowering benefits for workers hired in the future.

Editors note, 12:20 p.m.: Details of the severance agreement have been added to this report.

Nearly 1,000 State Compensation Insurance Fund employees took an unusual severance package in December that required they leave their jobs by last Friday.

Fund spokeswoman Jennifer Vargen said that 971 employees accepted the so-called "transition package" under terms negotiated by the quasi-public agency and Service Employees International Union Local 1000. She said the total cost of the payouts isn't yet available.

About 1,800 employees in 26 job classifications slated for elimination could have taken the deal at an estimated cost of up to $50 million to State Fund.

State Fund employees who took the severance package waived their rights to preferential treatment for hiring into other state jobs and "probably" are not eligible for unemployment insurance benefits, Vargen said.

The agency sells employee compensation insurance to businesses. Although its employees are in state civil service, State Fund doesn't receive any tax funding, so the money to cover the exit payments came from the fund's investment assets and insured client premiums, not taxpayer dollars.

Controller John Chiang's office has sent an update on the federal payroll tax that is withheld on state paychecks with a Jan. 1 issue date. As we reported last week, Congress passed an extension of the lower tax rate that was to expire this year, but did so two days after the controller's deadline to recalculate checks that assumed the higher rate.

This letter to all departments and universities that run their employee pay through the controller's office includes answers to five frequently asked questions about the situation:
CA State Controller's payroll update

PHOTO: John Chiang / 2010 Sacramento Bee file, Hector Amezcua

Two public pension reform plans aimed for the November 2012 ballot wouldn't make much of a dent in government costs for decades, and the savings to employers' retirement expenses would be "offset to some extent by increases in other employee compensation costs," according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.

The LAO's take on both plans -- one a so-called "hybrid" system for new workers and the other a 401(k)-style retirement account for new workers -- concludes that they are fraught with legal peril and could wind up costing state and local government more or less depending on how they're "interpreted and administered."

The analyses share much of the same language and conclusions. Click here for the LAO's review of the defined contribution plan backed by California Pension Reform. This link opens the review of CPR's alternative hybrid pension proposal that mirrors a plan backed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The LAO called Brown's plan "a bold, excellent starting point" for changing public pensions, but that it also "leaves many questions unanswered."

Putting "Stanford," "study" and "pensions" in a headline guarantees an online traffic surge. An April 2010 post, "Stanford study: Public pensions a half-trillion dollars short," ranked as the 15th most-viewed State Worker blog item among the 1,000 we posted that year.

This year's follow-up to that report by Stanford University professor Joe Nation ranked even higher -- and if the subsequent fallout from the report is an indication, rankled public-pension supporters even more.

Here's the Dec. 13 post on the latest Stanford study, "Stanford study pegs California pensions' shortfall at $500 billion."

Although Congress has extended the reduced Social Security payroll tax for at least two months, state workers' wages will be withheld at a higher rate on their Jan. 1 checks for reasons that we explained in Thursday's State Worker column.

Those employees will receive a refund on their Feb. 1 checks, said Jacob Roper, spokesman for State Controller John Chiang.

But what about state workers who are going to retire at the end of this month and won't be around to receive a February paycheck? Several thousand employees will fall into that category, since nearly a quarter of state workers who retire each year do so at the end of December.

State workers who enter retirement in January will receive a payroll tax refund check from the state, Roper said.

PHOTO: www.freefoto.com

This is the second installment in a series of posts counting down the most-read State Worker blog items and columns of 2011.

We started fielding a few calls, emails and Facebook messages in late September from state workers wondering if furloughs might return. The reason: A provision in SEIU Local 1000's contract requiring employees take 12 unpaid leave days over 12 months would expire at the end of October. So would a corresponding no-furlough guarantee.

The state workers who contacted us wanted to know: Would Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature bring back furloughs once the leave program ended?

This Oct. 25 post explained why that wouldn't happen: "More state workers to return to full hours and pay"

California Common Sense has posted an adjunct "data transparency portal" supplementing this morning's Stanford study that estimates California's three biggest pension funds are carrying up to $485 billion in unfunded liabilities.

The CCS website allows users to parse the Stanford data by pension fund and by various metrics, including the one captured below that compares unfunded liabilities to general fund spending (excluding K-12 education and Health and Human Services).

This link opens the CCS website.

Stanford's Institute for Economic Policy Research has issued it's new report, "Pension Math: How California's Retirement Spending is Squeezing the State Budget." Click here for our previous post on the study.
Pension Math: How California's Retirement Spending is Squeezing the State Budget

The Coalition of University Employees - Teamsters Local 2010 and the University of California have agreed to a new labor contract that trades raises for a new pension plan tier and higher employee contribution costs for current employees and future hires.

The deal covers more than 12,500 university clerical staff, marking the end of tough bargaining talks that started in 2008.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics last week reported that:

Employer costs for employee compensation averaged $30.11 per hour worked in September 2011. Wages and salaries averaged $20.91 per hour worked and accounted for 69.4 percent of these costs, while benefits averaged $9.21 and accounted for the remaining 30.6 percent. Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $28.24 per hour worked in September 2011.

State and local government employers spent an average of $40.76 per hour worked for employee compensation in September 2011. Wages and salaries averaged $26.57 per hour and 65.2 percent of compensation costs, while benefits averaged $14.19 per hour worked and accounted for the remaining 34.8 percent. Total compensation costs for management, professional, and related occupations, which represent approximately half of all state and local government employment, averaged $49.37 per hour worked. Average hourly compensation costs were $30.86 for service occupations and $28.49 for sales and office occupations.

Click here for more info from the BLS Thursday report.

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

Our story today reports on CalPERS' problems with its new computer system, dubbed my/CalPERS, and its implementation, the Pension System Resumption Project. Since the system's startup in September, the fund has been slower to process death benefits claims for some members. The delayed payments have prompted some health insurance providers to take some members off their rolls for failing to pay their premiums -- which must be deducted from the death benefit payments).

CalPERS says it's giving the matter top priority and that no one is in danger of losing their medical coverage because of the computer problems.

Want to dig deeper? Here are some of the documents that informed the story:

The transcript of the CalPERS Board of Administration meeting on Oct. 19. The my/CalPERS discussion starts on page 48.

The transcript of the Nov. 16 CalPERS Board of Administration meeting. Scroll down to page 53 for my/CalPERS talk.

An Oct. 31 performance report on the transition from CalPERS' old patchwork computer system to the new one. We thought one of the metrics on page 2 was particularly interesting: "CalPERS reputation may be damaged if Judges and Legislators functionality is not properly implemented."

IMAGE: www.freeclipart.com

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

Want to dig more deeply into State Compensation Insurance Fund's agreement to pay up to $50 million in severance packages to exiting employees? Here you go:

• The agreement between State Fund and SEIU Local 1000

• The contract between State Fund and the "legally uninsured Departments of the State of California."

• The Nov. 9 SEIU Local 1000 "Union Update" flyer that explains how some employees at State Fund moved to avoid a layoff and then found out their jobs were in jeopardy anyway.

• Our Oct. 9 story about State Fund layoffs.

As we reported earlier today, State Compensation Insurance Fund employees targeted for lay off can receive what amounts to severance pay if they volunteer to leave by Dec. 31.

Here's the 'transition package' State Fund negotiated with SEIU Local 1000:

California Pension Reform's Mike Genest has issued this statement about the LAO's review of Gov. Jerry Brown's pension proposals:

It is disappointing that the LAO omits the most critical flaw of the Governor's proposal: By his own admission his plan only solves $4-$11 billion of what is at least a $240 billion unfunded liability. While the Governor's plan has merits, it solves less than 5% of our problem. We need bold, comprehensive reform now and cannot continue to wait as politicians debate the issue and tinker around the edges.

California Pension Reform recently filed two ballot proposals with the attorney general's office for official title and summary. It hopes to start gathering signatures in January in hopes of qualifying one of the two measures for the November 2012 ballot.

The Legislative Analyst's Office has released an eight-minute video, embedded below, that sums up its review of Gov. Jerry Brown's pension reform proposal.

"We view Gov. Brown's (pension) proposal as a bold one, and one that should very carefully considered by the Legislature," says the LAO's Jason Sisney.

Still, he says, "we don't understand some key aspects" of Brown's proposals, particularly how putting new employees into a hybrid plan or pushing back new hires' qualifying retirement age would work.

The LAO also has questions about how pensions could be capped and notes that the unfunded liabilities of the CalSTRS and UC pension systems aren't addressed.

"In our view ... it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to change all of these (UC and CalSTRS) benefits substantially and not think about how they're going to be funded into the future," Sisney says.

And, Sisney notes, the governor's plan is silent on retiree health benefits for local government workers.

Californians for Retirement Security, a labor coalition representing 1.5 million state and local public employees, has issued a statement in response to this morning's LAO review of Gov. Jerry Brown's pension reform package.

Here's the statement emailed to media a few minutes ago quoting Dave Low, the coalition's chairman:

The LAO's mixed assessment of the Governor's pension proposals hits the nail on the head when it says that the Legislature should move forward in a deliberate and reasoned fashion to craft solutions to California's complex pension systems. There are far too many unanswered questions and lack of details to fairly and accurately evaluate the impact of these proposals. Those proposals that impair the negotiated benefits of current employees are a legal dead end. As the report points out, these are matters that should be settled at the bargaining table, not in courtrooms. We will continue to work in the upcoming Legislative session, just as we have for the past several years, to achieve the spirit of the Governor's reforms without taking a wrecking ball to the retirement security of California's teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public workers.

PHOTO: Dave Low / Courtesy California School Employees Association

The Legislative Analyst's Office has published its review of Gov. Jerry Brown's pension plan, concluding that it is "a bold, excellent starting point" for changing public pensions, but that it also "leaves many questions unanswered."

In particular, we do not understand key details of how his hybrid benefit and retirement age proposals would work. Moreover, the Governor's plan leaves unaddressed many important pension and retiree health issues, including how to address the huge funding problems facing the state's teachers' retirement fund, the University of California's (UC's) significant pension funding problem, retiree health benefit liabilities, and other issues. In making significant changes to pension and retiree health benefits, we would urge the Legislature also to tackle these very difficult issues concerning the funding of benefits.

The report also cautions that Brown's plan to mandate current employees pay more toward their retirement accounts is a "legal and collective bargaining minefield." Ditto for suggestions by The Little Hoover Commission and others (not Brown) that current employees' accrued benefits could be frozen and then reduced going forward:

As we mentioned last month, November is the first pay period that exempt employees and workers covered by SEIU Local 1000 return to full hours and pay (which will show up on the Dec. 1 paycheck.)

We're still receiving a trickle of email and phone calls from employees who either haven't heard or don't believe it. So we're posting the highly technical proof: the Nov. 1 pay letter from the Department of Personnel Administration to the State Controller's Office. The key sentence:

The State Controller's Office will process an employment history mass update to delete
the Personal Leave Program (PLP) ... for rank-and-file employees in bargaining units 1, 3, 4, 11, 14, 15, 17, 20, and 21, as well as excluded, exempt, and statutory employees.

Here's the pay letter:

Editor's note, 11:33 a.m.: Due to incorrect information provided by California Pension Reform, an earlier version of this post indicated that full-career public safety workers would receive their full benefit at age 60 after 30 years of service under a defined contribution plan. The correct age is 58 for those workers.

California's current and future state and local employees would pay more for their pensions under two ballot initiative proposals submitted to the state attorney general today with the intent of putting one of them to a statewide vote next year.

"Seventy percent of voters think it's time," said Dan Pellissier, president of California Pension Reform, referring to public opinion polls on public pensions.

Savings Plus, the supplemental retirement savings option administered by the Department of Personnel Administration, is hosting a "financial fitness fair" on Friday at the Sacramento Convention Center's third floor at 1400 J St. from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Representatives from Savings Plus, CalPERS, and Social Security will be on hand. Visitors can talk with a retirement planner and a health fitness expert. Representatives from the offices of Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assemblyman Roger Dickinson.

TV and radio personality, financial advisor Kelly Brothers, will deliver the keynote address at 10 a.m.

Click "Fullscreen" at the bottom of the embedded agenda to get a better view.

2011 Sacramento Fitness Fair Agenda

A special legislative pension committee will hold the first of three hearings on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the City of Carson council chambers, 701 East Carson St. in Carson.

The agenda suggests that this first hearing has plenty of pro-public-pension voices from labor, from Dave Low of California School Employees Association and Californians for Retirement Security to Terry Brennand, Senior Government Relations Advocate, SEIU California.

The city is going to webcast the hearing through its website, which you can access here.

Sitting on the committee: Assemblymen Michael Allen, D-Santa Rosa, Warren Furutani, D-Gardena and Jim Silva, R-Huntington Beach and Sens. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto and Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Niguel.

The labor coalition Californians for Retirement Security is planning to hold a "Pension Truth Squad" press conference just before the hearing "to set the record straight about attacks on their pensions," according to a press release. The events serve to put a human face on the politically volatile pension debate by putting government workers and retirees to tell their stories before the media.

The coalition said that public workers will also testify at the hearing. Click here for the coalition's press release and advisory.

IMAGE: The City of Carson seal / http://ci.carson.ca.us

More than half the state workforce will return to full hours and pay starting next week.

The so-called "Personal Leave Program" ends Nov. 1 for the 95,000 employees covered by SEIU Local 1000 and another 30,000 excluded workers such as managers and supervisors.

The state sent paychecks to about 230,000 employees last month, according to the latest figures from the controller's office.

A little over one year ago, Local 1000 agreed to a contract that included one day of PLP per month for 12 months That agreement, which went into effect Nov. 1, 2010, also gave members a no-furlough guarantee during the PLP period.

Excluded managers and supervisors received similar terms via a memo issued by the Department of Personnel Administration.

Several blog users have asked if the end of PLP means that furloughs might return. Technically, it's possible, but we think it's extremely unlikely.

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

Here are links to the Department of Personnel Administration webpages that will lead you to the contract side letters that were the basis of today's report in The Bee. Click the "addenda on realignment for Bargaining Unit" link to open the documents.

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

The new contract amendments discussed in our story in today's Bee share many details, but they're very different in the incentive payments they offer when employees transfer.

As of this writing on Tuesday, California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment (Unit 2), Professional Engineers in California Government (9) and California Association of Professional Scientists (10) hadn't signed any contract amendments.

The California Association of Highway Patrolmen (Unit 5), the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (7) and the California Department of Forestry Firefighters (8) don't have members who work for Corrections, so they weren't approached to amend their contracts.

Here are the incentive pay differences as spelled out in the various agreements signed with SEIU Local 1000 (Bargaining Units 1, 3, 4, 11, 14, 15, 17, 20 and 21), California Correctional Peace Officers Association (Unit 6), International Union of Operating Engineers (12 and 13), Union of American Physicians & Dentists (16), California Association of Psychiatric Technicians (18) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (19).

SEIU Local 1000
Voluntary transfers to High Desert State Prison, California Correctional Center, Pelican Bay State Prison, or Salinas Valley State Prison: $5,000
Voluntary transfer to other institutions: $3,750
Involuntary transfer: $1,980

CCPOA--first layoff wave only
Transfers to High Desert State Prison or Pelican Bay State Prison: $7,500, drops to $3,750 after deadline set by CDCR
Transfers to Salinas Valley State Prison: $5625, drops to $3750 after deadline set by CDCR
California Medical Facility or California State Prison-Sacramento: $3,750, drops to $2,550 after deadline set by CDCR

CCPOA--second and subsequent layoff waves
Transfers to High Desert, Pelican Bay, or Salinas Valley: $3,750
Other institutions: $2,550

AFSCME, UAPD, CAPT, IUOE:
$3,750 for voluntary transfer
$1,980 for involuntary transfer

Our Sunday story about the increased interest in CalPERS' additional retirement service credit and its impact on CalPERS member services unit didn't mention one way you can speed up the cost estimate process for everyone: Use one of the fund's online calculators.

A new study by the Center for Retirement Research and Boston College refutes the notion that state and local government workers as a group end up a lot richer than their private sector counterparts.

The study used 1996-2006 data from the University of Michigan's Health and Retirement Study to examine whether state and local government employees are wealthier in their retirement years.

We've been fielding a steady stream of e-mails and phone calls since reporting last week on a proposal to add a union stipend to the union paid leave that SEIU Local 1000's president and three vice presidents receive.

The plan would set the president's combined state pay and the new union stipend at $150,000 per year. Vice presidents would receive their pay and enough stipend money to earn $125,000 annually. The proposal's author, Marie Harder, has said that the extra union payment wouldn't affect the four officers' state retirement, nor would it qualify them for SEIU's employee retirement plan.

We've heard enough reaction that it seems like a poll is in order:

UC Santa Barbara economics lecturer Lanny Ebenstein can begin collecting signatures for three ballot initiatives that would eliminate public employee collective bargaining, create higher tax rates for six-figure CalPERS and CalSTRS pensions and raise the retirement age for public employees in both systems.

The Secretary of State's office announced today that Ebenstein has until Feb. 3 to collect 807, 615 signatures from qualified voters for each of the measures to put them on a statewide ballot.

State workers will identify with this: More and more cities, counties and school districts in California are lowering retirement benefits to new hires and offering financial incentives for long-time employees to leave, according to a report discussed during CalPERS' board meeting this morning.

Still, nearly four dozen contracts increased benefits during fiscal years 2009-10 and 2010-11, although "(m)any agencies are currently seeking advice on potential cost saving measures to help them find financial relief from the market downturn and budgetary concerns," the report to the fund's Benefits and Program Administration Committee says.

The California Correctional Supervisors Organization is suing to keep a retirement benefit for their members that it alleges the state has illegally eliminated. The organization represents managers and supervisors in the the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The lawsuit, which is scheduled for hearing on Sept. 23, says that the state shouldn't have axed the Police Office Fire Fighter II retirement benefit for CCSO members when the Brown administration agreed with CCPOA to end the program. Under the so-called POFF II benefit, which was unique to CCPOA's contract, the state put money equal to about 2 percent of an employee's pay into a 401(k)-type fund.

As of Jan. 31, the plan had nearly 40,000 participants and $479 million in assets, according to CalPERS.

CCSO's lawsuit, filed in June, says that it was illegal for the state to unilaterally yank the benefit from its members. The state says that it gave CCSO a heads up but the organization didn't ask for a meeting to talk it over. And besides, the state says, the budget that lawmakers passed didn't carve out money to continue POFF II for CCSO members.

Click here to read CCSO's petition. This link opens the state's opposing response.

IMAGE: www.yolocourts.ca.gov

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

Here are a few items that informed our story in today's Bee, "Pension extension via 'airtime' becomes political target."

The CalPERS backgrounder on additional retirement service credit.

Assembly Bill 719, which authorized airtime purchases.

Our September 2010 blog post on the fund's airtime price hike.

Like some state workers in Gov. Jerry Brown's administration, all employees at the State Compensation Insurance Fund could eventually lose their free vehicles.

The quasi-public fund cut its vehicle fleet from 1,920 cars in December to just 982 cars at the end of June. Fund spokeswoman Gina Simons said the fleet would be cut to 150 vehicles by the end of this year.

Those remaining cars are part of a lease from Toyota through 2015, Simons said, and it will be allowed to expire.

"We are making sure our employees have the proper tools to do their jobs by managing transportation more effectively with a clearer line of sight that will enable us to more efficiently manage expenses," she said in a statement.

The fund had no estimates on how much it would save by cutting the fleet.

Fund officials began reviewing its vehicle policy last spring, shortly after the IRS launched an audit of vehicle use reporting practices by state employees at some state agencies. IRS rules require company cars to be listed as taxable income unless they are predominantly used for work.

Officials then announced it would cut the fund's fleet in half, leaving vehicles only in the hands of people who absolutely needed them for regular work travel. Eventually, they decided to get rid of the fleet altogether. Employees who used the cars, which were insured by the fund, also were furnished cards that could be used only to pay for gas and fund-approved car maintenance.

A group of nearly 400 attorneys belonging to the California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment union sued to keep their cars. Many of them say the fund officials promised them company vehicles as a benefit in exchange for taking low wages. However, the perk was never directly written into their contract, according to CASE attorney Patrick Whalen.

But worried about losing their cars, having to accept furloughs and make other concessions, the union added a new clause into their latest deal with the state that says CASE members at the fund "shall not be subjected to furloughs, Personal Leave Program and/or any other form(s) of compensation or benefit reductions while still working." The union is arguing that the vehicles count as compensation.

Whalen said many employees would not have bought homes far away from their job sites had they known they would have to pay for their own cars, insurance, maintenance and gas.

A judge decided last month that CASE must file a grievance before seeking a court remedy. The grievance process is expected to lead to an arbitration hearing in the early fall. The court document posted below has more details.

Filed Stipulation

The office of state Controller John Chiang has updated its salary database with pay, pension benefits and other compensation data for 256,222 state of California employees and another 123,406 California State University workers.

The site, which is updated weekly, also covers roughly 600,000 employees in California cities, counties and special districts plus elected officials at all government levels. The information, which is based on the 2009 calendar year, includes:

• Minimum and maximum salary ranges.
• Actual wages paid.
• The applicable retirement formula.
• Any contributions by the employer to the employee's share of pension costs.
• Any contributions by the employer to the employee's deferred compensation plan.
• Any employer payments for the employee's health, vision and dental premium benefits.

Individuals' names are not displayed on the website, which you can view by clicking here. You can see a list of government bodies that haven't provided information by clicking this link.

State workers, the clock is ticking for you to use or lose your Professional Development Days for the current fiscal year.

But since almost nothing is simple when it comes to California state government and human resources, there are some caveats. More about that in a moment.

Contracts negotiated first with former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration and then with Gov. Jerry Brown allow two PDDs per fiscal year that must be used or lost. Simply put, If you're a state employee who hasn't taken your 16 hours of PDD leave by the end of Thursday -- with management approval -- the time vanishes. PDD can't be banked or cashed out.

Now for the fine print:

From today's Bee, in case you missed it:

Undaunted by allegations of fraud, CalPERS on Monday formally awarded a huge drug-benefit contract to CVS Caremark.

CalPERS chose Caremark even though the company is being sued by several former employees for allegedly defrauding the pension fund the last time it held the contract, nearly a decade ago.

Click here to check out the rest of the report by The Bee's Dale Kasler.

We've received about a dozen e-mails and three phone calls from state workers all asking the same question: Will lawmakers get paid for submitting a budget that Brown vetoed?

It all depends on what the state's checkwriter-in-chief decides. Controller John Chiang has set himself up as the arbiter for Proposition 25, the initiative that withholds elected state workers' wages (A.K.A. legislator's pay and per diem) if they fail to submit a balanced budget by June 15. While the measure doesn't name the controller as the person to decide whether the standard is met, the office has the power to cut paychecks -- or not.

That "pay role" is a powerful tool, as we saw when former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger twice attempted to withhold state employees' wages to the federal minimum during budget impasses in 2008 and last year. In both cases Chiang defied Schwarzenegger and illustrated how his office can affect policy.

(In case you missed it, Brown dropped the lawsuit he inherited from the Schwarzenegger administration that sought to force Chiang's compliance.)

Brown and Treasurer Bill Lockyer, both Democrats, have said the budget passed by their own party is a sham. It's created pressure for Chiang, also a Democrat, to withhold the Legislature's pay and per diem in keeping with Proposition 25. Bee columnist Dan Walters weighed in today, saying, "If Chiang pays legislators, the rejected budget will look like a giant charade by Democrats to evade the law."

On Thursday, after Brown's speedy veto of the Dems' majority budget, the controller's office issued this release:

We never get everything we learn into news stories about state employees. But State Worker blog users can get the notes, the quotes and the details from the notebook that informed our writing. This is the third in a series of posts spinning off "California Highway Patrol, prison officers compete for pay, respect," published on Tuesday.

Since our story about CAHP and CCPOA ran on Tuesday, we've received e-mails, phone calls and seen online comments that say California Highway Patrol officers' pay is linked to the five highest-paying law enforcement agencies in the state.

It's not.

Here's Government Code 19827 (a) (1), with the agencies used to benchmark wages for California Association of Highway Patrolmen:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, in order to recruit and retain the highest qualified employees, the state shall pay sworn members of the California

Highway Patrol who are rank-and-file members of State Bargaining Unit 5 the estimated average total compensation for each corresponding rank for the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office, San Diego Police Department, Oakland Police Department, and San Francisco Police Department. Total compensation shall include base salary, educational incentive pay, physical performance pay, longevity pay, and retirement contributions made by the employer on behalf of the employee.

Now look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2010 list of highest-paying metro regions for police and sheriffs (above or click here). The top five are all in California, but three of those are areas without a department on the CAHP benchmark list including No. 1 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara.

You can take a closer look at 2010 San Jose city police total compensation on this searchable employee pay database.

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users data, notes and quotes from the notebook that informed what we published.

Our story in today's cyber/fiber Bee looks at the long-running competition between California's correctional officers and Highway Patrol officers for pay and respect. The story includes a chart that shows the current pay ranges for each occupation.

Several readers have called and e-mailed with the same question this morning: How much do people in other states earn for similar work?

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks that data, although it lumps local jobs with state jobs. The patrol class is part of police and sheriff's data. Correctional officers are grouped with local jailers. 

Depending on your point of view, it's a helpful comparison or an overbroad survey that fails to take into account factors such as California's relatively higher cost of living.

Here are a couple of BLS data tables that capture May 2010 pay, the most current information available. Clicking the links opens more tables and maps, on everything from metro area statistics to the national mean and median wages for each job group.

Top paying states for correctional officers and jailers:

With just 400 to 450 words for our weekly State Worker column, most of what we learn each week never sees print. Column Extras give you some of the notes, the quotes and the observations that inform what's published.

Our column in today's Bee notes that the state's employer pension contribution for fiscal 2011-12 will run about $410 million less that it would have been without the higher employee contributions negotiated first by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and then continued in contract agreements negotiated by Gov. Jerry Brown.

What follows are CalPERS' actuarial estimates that show the exact figures. Note: The report was printed before Gov. Jerry Brown signed the measure with the last six contracts into law this week, so the third column, "With Increase in Member Contributions for All Agreements (Includes those not Ratified Yet)" actually includes the estimates of those newly-ratified deals:

CalPERS says a report issued last week that questions the sustainability of defined-benefit public pensions is "flawed" and that various fixes it considers are either inequitable or illegal.

The fund is firing back at "Comparing Public and Private Employee Compensation and Retirement Benefits in California," commissioned by the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, a pension-change advocacy organization based in Citrus Heights.

The study by Capitol Matrix Consulting, a firm co-founded by former state Finance Department Director Mike Genest, says that California's state and local government employees' pay is roughly equal to counterparts' salaries in the private sector, but pension and health benefits push public workers' total compensation costs about 10 percent higher.

It considers several options proposed by the foundation to close that gap, such as eliminating health benefits for spouses and dependents of retirees when a retiree turns 65 .

CalPERS says the report makes flawed assumptions, uses flawed methods, lacks specifics and takes a race-to-the-bottom, anti-pension posture. The fund's reply is embedded below and was just posted on the CalPERS Responds website.
CalPERS' Key Observations of CFFR Study

The Assembly Appropriations Committee stalled a bill that would freeze the pay of non-union state employees earning more than $100,000 per year.

By putting the bill on the committee's suspense file, Democrats who run the committee can say it's still technically alive. But It's at least the seventh time such a measure has been bottled up.

Assembly Bill 7, authored by Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D- Pasadena, originally prohibited the salary increases or bonuses for employees earning $150,000 or more per year. He told committee members this morning that he is amending the measure to lower the threshold another $50,000 to increase the state's savings. His office estimated the freeze, applied until Jan.1, 2014, would cut about $20 million from the government payroll.

Ken DaRosa of the Department of Finance said the savings would be "very nominal" given that relatively few state employees earn six-figure salaries and that the measure doesn't affect workers under binding labor contracts.

CalPERS and CalSTRS oppose the bill. CalSTRS says it would hurt fund investments by discouraging recruiting and retention. Investment managers generally make much more money in the private sector than working for public pension funds.

Portantino defended the measure as a money-saver that also sends a message.

"In time of budget deficits and high unemployment ... and deep budget cuts, it makes no sense to let CSUS administrators hand out bonuses or for investment officers at CalPERS to get bonuses," he said.

Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, R-Dana Point, said she wished that the measure extended to all state workers, but recognized that legal barriers prevent it. She also disagreed with the public pension funds' criticism and referenced their investment losses.

"I understand the competitiveness argument," she said, "but clearly some of the investment officers have been less than adequate."

Portantino's office issued this press release just a few minutes ago.

PHOTO: Assemblyman Anthony Portantino. http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov

Our Monday post about the new analysis of the tentative agreements for California's state scientists and engineers contained a paragraph about personal leave having cash value that needs some clarification:

The Department of Personnel Administration's savings estimates don't include a provision that it negotiated later with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and then applied via a March 30 memo to the five units that reached deals with Brown. The provision gives cash value to personal leave program time.

The Legislative Analyst's Office came to that conclusion from a hand-written note in the Unit 6 tentative agreement signed by Department of Personnel Administration Director Ron Yank, pictured below: "DPA to issue PML giving PLP cash value. For you and any of the other five open b.u.'s with whom we reach a deal. You bet, Ron Yank."

The Legislative Analyst's Office has published its review of the tentative agreements reached with California Association of Professional Scientists and with Professional Engineers in California Government.

This review, like those before it, says that the administration has overstated the contract's cost savings for the current fiscal year and that the savings for 2011-12 are about 6 percent, short of the 8 percent to 10 percent in contract savings that Gov. Jerry Brown has said that he needs.

The Department of Personnel Administration's savings estimates don't include a provision that it negotiated later with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and then applied via a March 30 memo to the five units that reached deals with Brown. The provision gives cash value to personal leave program time.

The analyst published its analysis of the contracts on Friday. That same day, DPA sent the CCPOA contract to the LAO for review. The analyst has 10 days to issue its review of the deal, although we expect it will finish earlier.

Here's the fiscal analysis of the contracts for units 9 and 10:

California's state attorneys union members have overwhelmingly ratified a new contract that runs through July 1, 2013. The deal now goes to the Legislature for a vote and, assuming at least two-thirds of lawmakers approve it, on to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk for a signature.

Officials with California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment said that 1,388, or 85 percent of the 1,631 ballots cast, supported the agreement.

The deal exchanges thrice-monthly furloughs for the union's members for a single unpaid day off each month for one year, starting today. It also increases what employees toward their pensions and introduces a top-step pay increase at the end of the contract matches the retirement contribution hike.

Only union rank and file who were full dues-paying members for least 45 days before today's tally could vote on the contract. CASE has been under the terms of an expired deal for nearly four years.

The union represents roughly 3,300 legal professionals, a little less than 2 percent of the state's roughly 200,000 unionized workers. Members of five other unions representing a combined 45,000 employees are voting on similar agreements reached with the Brown administration last month.

The contracts are part of the governor's plan to attack the state's budget deficit, now $15.4 billion for next year. The governor and lawmakers figured the 2011-12 budget would include union contract concessions equal to an 8 percent to 10 percent cut from previous contracts.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office reviewed the CASE agreement and concluded that it saves the state about $3.5 million or about 3.5 percent. The analyst has reviewed three other recently negotiated contracts and figures that they also fall short of the state's savings goal.

A new report concludes that public-sector employees' compensation lags that of private-sector workers when education and experience are factored in. The trade-off: Public-sector jobs remain more secure, and health and pension benefits are generally better than in the private sector.

"Getting It Right: Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications From Research on Public-Sector Unionism and Collective Bargaining," by David Lewin, of UCLA's Anderson School of Management, and Thomas Kochan, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, also includes research from a half-dozen professors from around the country who are part of the Employment Policy Research Network.

For example, the chart above comes from page 5 of the report, refers to work by Jeffrey H. Keefe, associate professor of labor and employment relations at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University. His work countered Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's claim that state employees there are overpaid.

Still, the paper recognizes that states face serious budget problems and that labor-management dynamics need to change. Among the researchers' suggestions:

• Perform an evidence-based analysis of wages, benefit costs and funding arrangements for state employees.
• Use the findings for state public-sector summit meetings to clarify and define the issues and problems that need immediate attention, and use problem-solving tools such as interest-based negotiations and mediation-arbitration to agree on statewide "grand bargains" that address the most critical budget problems and are fair to both taxpayers and employees.
• Charge a broadly representative group to carry out evidence-based analysis to modernize public-sector collective-bargaining practices

The Assembly Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security Committee has approved a bill that would freeze the pay of state employees earning more than $150,000 per year.

Assembly Bill 7, authored by Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D- Pasadena, prohibits the salary increases or bonuses for those higher-end employees until Jan.1, 2014, while they are employed in the same position or job classification.

The measure exempts unionized state employees and anyone "who occupies a classification that is deemed necessary to public safety and security by the Governor through an executive order, or a person whose salary is set by the State Constitution," according to this Assembly committee analysis.

Portantino's bill doesn't affect UC system employees, but, "(a)t a time when the University of California Board of Regents is raising student fees, it is imperative that they show leadership and fiscal responsibility for two years by not granting raises or bonuses for employees that make in excess of $150,000 per year," the bill says.

This is the seventh time Portantino has introduced pay freeze legislation. It now goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee for another hearing.
Assembly Bill 7, introduced by Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-Pasadena

In case you missed it last week, Bee colleague Phillip Reese pulled some California data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis that shows state and local government employees' personal income fell 2.6 percent last year.

Construction workers took the biggest hit, with income down 10.4 percent. Personal income for employees in the finance industry dropped 2.2 percent.

Other industries saw pay increases, from manufacturing (up 1.8 percent) to technology (up 5.8 percent).

Click here to view Phillip's interactive graphic over at The Public Eye blog.

Hat tip to long-time Blog User K for the friendly reminder about this data.

Space limits our Thursday State Worker column to about 450 words, so much of what we learn in the ramp-up to writing it never sees print. Column Extras give you some of the notes, the quotes and the observations that don't make the cut.

We've been hearing some rumblings about the tentative agreement between Gov. Jerry Brown and California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment. The critics, nearly all of them SEIU-covered, are particularly upset over the deferred 4 percent increase for top-step employees at the end of the contract and the extra 1.73 hours of paid leave that the attorneys will accrue each month.

The deal negotiated by SEIU Local 1000 in October has a 3 percent deferred raise for the top step and no extra hours of paid leave each month. It's that 1 percent difference, plus the CASE deal's extra paid leave, that's prompting some SEIU-covered state workers to shoot some heated e-mails our way.

So what's the story? Did Brown throw a little extra something to the union that represents lawyers who not so long ago worked for the former attorney general? Is the CASE deal sweeter than the one negotiated by SEIU Local 1000?

Here's what sources familiar with the talks tell us:

Get ready for some major public employee pension push back from Californians for Health Care and Retirement Security, the broad-based coalition of government worker unions chaired by Dave Low of the California School Employees Association.

The group has tapped Steve Maviglio, head of Sacramento-based Forza Communications, to speak up for civil service workers, starting with an open letter to lawmakers Tuesday afternoon, urging that they "protect retirement security for those who serve the public."

Maviglio brings to bear 30 years of political communications experience at the state, local and national level. In Sacramento, he's probably best known as the spokesman for former Gov. Gray Davis and Assembly Speakers Fabian Núñez and Karen Bass. Most recently, he was the spokesman for the group that successfully opposed Proposition 23, the November 2010 measure that would have suspended the state's greenhouse gas law.

The Maviglio hiring signals that the unions believe they need to raise their public communications game, particularly given the growing pressures on employee pay and pensions created by the state's deep -- and deeply divisive -- $26.6 billion budget deficit. The economy also has created a bit of a tailwind for groups looking to cut current public employees' pension benefits or severely limit public employee collective bargaining.

While such changes may be a political long shot in California, the fact that the ideas have entered the public discourse pushes out the boundaries of the pension/compensation reform debate.

And if voters don't approve Gov. Jerry Brown's tax extension plan to help close part of that shortfall, it will be Maviglio's job to shape the message that keeps government workers' pay and pensions from being ripped apart in the political storm that will undoubtedly follow.

PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Maviglio testifies before the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday, January 7, 2004. Sacramento Bee/ John Decker

As Bee state pay database guru Phillip Reese notes in this lead story, both the number of state employees and the state's payroll cost fell last year.

So what's been happening in other states? The National Association of Governors and the National Association of Budget Officers surveyed state employee compensation changes in fiscal 2011. The results are contained in last year's "Fiscal Survey of the States." It notes that 27 states planned to reduce full time positions this year and 24 states said that they would be laying off employees. Several states reported declines in employee salary from furloughs, while other states said they were nixing cost of living or merit pay increases.

You can download the 84-page document here, although we've split out the five pages that focused on employee pay and benefits changes and embedded them below:

The Fiscal Survey of the States: State Employee Compensation Changes, Fiscal 2011

Today's online Q&A (click here for the replay) included many questions about the future of furloughs under Gov. Jerry Brown. It's a huge issue: About a third of unionized state employees in six bargaining units are still taking a three-day-per-month furlough hit to their pay.

Many state employees hoped that Brown would immediately end the policy-- which his election campaign criticized -- once he became governor.

The budget that Brown offered on Monday, however, assumes the policy will continue. Here are two key paragraphs from the employee compensation and retirement summary, which you can download by clicking here. We've underlined the sentence that touches on furloughs:

CalPERS says it's partnering with the University of California San Francisco to study health complications that could be avoided with better care. CalPERS says in this announcement that so-called "potentially avoidable complications" account for nearly 25 percent of U.S. private sector health care costs.

The one-year pilot program starts this month with university researchers examining chronic conditions, surgeries and acute medical events involving CalPERS members in the PERSCare, PERS Choice and PERS Select health plans.

The goal is to figure out how to cut down on avoidable health complications, which will drive down costs and improve the well-being of those who need medical care.

Click here for a September CalPERS Health Benefits Committee agenda item that analyzes the pilot program's advantages and disadvantages. CalPERS staff supported the project.

This is the next in a series of posts looking back at the most-read State Worker blog posts and columns.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger usually let surrogates handle the dirty work of talking about furloughs, but on a few occasions he addressed the controversial policy himself.

But at an Aug. 3 appearance before the Central California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Fresno, someone (probably a state worker) asked the governor, "Why did the state workers have to bear the brunt of fiscal mismanagement? When do we get our money back? When will the furloughs end?"

Schwarzenegger cut loose with a lengthy extemporaneous statement about furloughs that included his assertion that state workers "don't take on an extra burden," especially compared with private-sector employees who have lost their jobs.

Our post that afternoon included a transcript and audio clip of what Schwarzenegger said. It quickly drew hundreds of comments. Click here to read Schwarzenegger: "We're not taking anything away from any state employee."

A new report blasts the "questionable wisdom" of giving guns and cars to lawyers and auditors at the Office of Inspector General and classifying them as peace officers.

We touched on the policy in last week's State Worker column, noting that the OIG has started relieving some employees of their firearms and going from take-home cars to a motor pool system. But the office isn't changing anyone's peace officer status.

Today's highly critical 53-page report, published by the Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes, goes into more detail and recommends that the state re-examine whether lawyers and inspectors should get the guns, cars and pensions that police and firefighters receive.

We found that the peace-officer designation stems from the unsupported premise that OIG staff must be prepared to stave off violence and wield weaponry. In reality, such actions seldom if ever arise in these job categories. We also found that OIG uses peace officer perquisites - generous pensions and take-home state cars - to attract and retain its professional team of lawyers and auditors.

Among the report's findings:

President Barack Obama has announced a two-year pay freeze for federal employees through 2012.

According to the administration, the pay freeze will save $2 billion for the remainder of fiscal 2011, $28 billion over the next five years, and more than $60 billion over the next 10 years. It will apply to all civilian federal employees, but not military personnel.

Obama's announcement follows this Nov. 10 report by USA Today that ten times the number of federal workers earn $150,000 or more annually compared with five years ago and doubled since Obama took office.

Click here to read the administration's press advisory, which was embargoed until 11 a.m. Pacfic Time today.

From January 2009 through September of this year, California's state government hired or promoted employees to 477 career executive positions, according to figures provided by the State Controller's Office.

All but two of those jobs were full-time. The median monthly pay for employees assuming those posts: $8,616. The average monthly pay: $9,129.

The pace for executive hires and promotions in calendar 2010 quickened compared with 2009. Last year the state placed or promoted 230 employees into executive jobs, compared with 246 in the first nine months of this year.

Of those hired or promoted in 2010, 14 became effective on or after Schwarzenegger Cabinet Secretary Scott Reid clamped down on hiring.

Some of the increased executive hiring and promotions may be a result of a state worker rush to retirement prompted by furloughs, recent increases to employee pension contributions or demography. For example, a state audit last year estimated the government could lose 13,000 managers and supervisors to retirement by 2016, close to half of the employees at that level.

Click here to download the controller's numbers.This document defines the various columns of data on the spreadsheet.

CalPERS is making several changes to its member health plans, according to this Wednesday press release:

Beginning in 2011, CalPERS will eliminate lifetime and annual dollar limits for speech therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy. Those benefits will be converted to 24 visits per year, based on medical necessity. The cost impact of making these changes is less than one-tenth of a percent for each area, in large part due to CalPERS long-standing commitment to prevention and wellness as an integral part of health care. Lifetime limits for hospice care for PERS Choice, PERSCare, and PERS Select plans will be removed.

CalPERS will also eliminate co-payments for certain commercial and Medicare health plan preventive services beginning in 2011. Increases in Medicare Part B payments to providers will pay for Medicare initial and annual preventive services and wellness visits according to federal guidelines.

The fund also is making changes to some preventive and wellness services to comply with federal health care law that goes into effect in January.

Click here to read the CalPERS release.

Editor's note, 2:40 p.m.: The Pew map shows legislative changes to pensions tracked by the National Conference of State Legislatures. It doesn't include recent contractual changes mandated for exempt and excluded employees or union contracts ratified by the California Legislature that require that state workers make increased contributions to their pensions.

State pension rollbacks have gained momentum nationwide, according to a report released this morning by The Pew Center on the States.

"Roads to Reform: Changes to Public Sector Retirement Benefits Across States," notes that in the first 10 months of this year, 19 states moved to reduce their pension liabilities by cutting benefits, upping employee contributions or both. Last year, 11 states made similar changes, up from eight in 2008.

As the map above from the Pew report shows, 39 states have cut their pension costs in some fashion since 2001. This link opens an interactive map that shows the last decade of changes year by year.

States also are changing retiree health benefit plans, the report notes: "All these states have acknowledged that the costs they face for these benefits have diverged from what they have been willing or able to pay and have started to take the steps to bring them back in line."

Pew's report, which you can read by clicking here, also includes state-by-state summaries of pension and retiree health benefits changes.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this post included a Scribd display of the SEIU Local 1000 announcement. For purposes of easier readability, this version links directly to the announcement on the local's website.

SEIU Local 1000 has hired Nolice Edwards as its new chief of staff. Union President Yvonne Walker announced the decision in the following memo.

The memo, which you can read here, doesn't disclose what the union is paying Edwards, who earned $190,000 in 2009 as Assembly Speaker Karen Bass' chief of staff.

We've asked the local how much Edwards will make in her new post, but it's not a government job, so SEIU isn't obligated to disclose the information. Still, union spokesman Jim Zamora said he would check. If he comes back with an answer, we'll update this post.

"From the notebook" posts give State Worker blog users some of the details and documents behind the news.

Our story in today's Bee looks at the deal worked out to allow federally appointed prison medical receiver J. Clark Kelso to keep his state employee status while working at the pleasure of U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson.

The story explains how Kelso is a consultant to the Administrative Office of the Courts for payroll purposes. The arrangement allows him to maintain independence from the executive and legislative branches of government -- key to his role as the federal appointee tasked with reforming the state's prison medical system -- while continuing his membership in CalPERS as a state employee.

Click here to read several documents that informed this story, including the receiver's employment agreement between the Administrative Office of the Courts and the nonprofit California Prison Health Care Receivership Corp., Henderson's order appointing Kelso as the receiver, Kelso's biography and two letters from Henderson to the AOC about the deal.

One of Kelso's former employees, Linda Buzzini, asked CalPERS to count her employment as a receivership staff attorney toward her CalPERS pension. The fund denied her request. This link downloads CalPERS' 10-page response, which was copied to Kelso and CalPERS CEO Anne Stausboll.

Confusion reigns.

From the top of Caltrans down to rank-and-file employees, there appears to be some disagreement about the state's furlough policy next month and thereafter, particularly the status of workers represented by SEIU Local 1000.

Here's the deal, which we'll explain in more detail in a moment:

If your bargaining unit has a current contract or is in the midst of a ratification vote on a new contract, three-days-per-month furloughs are over for you. If you're a manager, supervisor or other non-union employee, you're off the three-day furlough plan, too.

Now, about that confusion.

Constitutional-department workers whose unions are without a contract will begin furloughs on Nov. 2, under the terms of a memo just released by the Department of Personnel Administration.

The furloughs will continue, according to the memo, until

Legislative approval of a new Memorandum of Understanding with these bargaining units that addresses the subject of furloughs; or

Certification by the Director of the Department of Finance that there is sufficient cash to allow the State to meet its obligations to pay for critical and essential services to protect public health and safety and to meet its payment obligations protected by the California Constitution and federal law.

It's not clear whether the constitutional officers who opposed previous furlough orders will comply with this new order. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sued those officials, including Attorney General Jerry Brown, Controller John Chiang and Treasurer Bill Lockyer, to submit to the order. The constitutionals lost and appealed the ruling. The case is still active in Sacramento's 3rd District Court and may have some bearing on how the constitutionals respond to this afternoon's furlough memo. The State Worker couldn't reach officials this evening for more details about the policy or the status of the constitutionals' appeal.

The policy is one of many explained in three Personnel Management Liaison memos that detail changes to retirement contributions and pension formulas, furloughs, the new personal leave program, step raises and more.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is planning to eliminate 31 dentist jobs early next year.

The State Worker learned of the decision from this notice to members of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists and confirmed it with CDCR spokeswoman Terry Thornton.

The target date for the layoffs is Jan. 14. A total of 93 notices went out last month. Corrections has 294 prison dentists on staff.

While the UAPD note says that layoff warning notices went out, it doesn't mention that the department is going to hire dental hygienists to perform the routine cleanings and examinations. "We currently have just two hygienists in the entire system," Thornton said.

At $15,183 per month, a CDCR dentist earns more than three times the $4,763 hygienist monthly wage. The department plans to hire enough of the lower-salaried professionals to get the ratio down to 2000 inmates per each hygienist -- roughly two hygienists per dentist. That will free up prison dentists to focus on higher-level dental care.

Thornton said that the courts have signed off on the plan.

UAPD is one of six unions that reached new labor agreements with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last summer. The deal, which shields members from furloughs and minimum wage in exchange for pay and benefits concessions, doesn't include layoff protections.

IMAGE: www.cdcr.ca.gov

As we reported last week, look for the Department of Personnel Administration to issue details on state employee compensation changes that the Legislature passed in budget bills earlier this month.

And then look for a new round of union lawsuits to follow.

The Santa Monica-based Milken Institute has released a report that says the aging public employee population's increased draw on pensions as baby boomers retire, combined with growing demands for educating the state's children in the coming years, is putting California in a fiscal vise.

The researchers also conclude that raising employee contributions will be less effective over time because the ratio of actively contributing members to benefit recipients will continue to decrease.

"Addressing California's Pension Shortfalls: The Role of Demographics in Designing Solutions," which Bee's Dan Walters writes about in more detail in this Capitol Alert post, comes just two days after the release of another study that concludes state public employees aren't overcompensated compared with the private sector. Click here for our post about "The Truth about Public Employees in California: They are Neither Overpaid nor Overcompensated."

One stage of the 2-year-old court battle between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Controller John Chiang ended this morning with a simple two-word post on the 3rd District Court of Appeal's website: "Case complete."

With all of the historic events of the last two weeks -- action on the state budget, the SEIU labor deal and the California Supreme Court decision on furloughs -- we almost forgot about another high-profile issue that's not yet resolved: state worker minimum-wage litigation.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette has scheduled Endsley v. Chiang for oral argument on Jan. 7. If Marlette's past decisions on furloughs and minimum wage are a guide, he'll issue a tentative decision ahead of the January hearing and then, unless an argument changes his mind, he'll quickly issue a final decision.

Between now and then, there's a Nov. 29 "evidentiary proceeding" during which witnesses will testify, possibly for an entire week. Each side will then submit more documents to Marlette, which he'll consider in the days leading up to oral arguments.

A week after lawmakers passed bills making sweeping changes to state employee pay and benefits, state officials still don't know exactly what the new legislation means.

Here's why: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger left the country after signing the main budget bill (which authorized him to continue furloughs for employees in unions without contracts), but he didn't sign the trailer bills containing employee compensation particulars, such as changes to pensions.

Apparently, those measures weren't rushed through the vetting and proofing process for his signature.

But the bureaucracy, like nature, abhors a vacuum. So in the absence of clear information from the administration, at least one well-intentioned department sent out some incorrect info to its employees about what the budget's passage means to its employees.

After we reported the confusion in our weekly State Worker column and posted the erroneous department memo and a subsequent retraction, the Department of Personnel Administration issued this e-mail Thursday afternoon:

Space constraints limit our State Worker column on Thursdays to roughly 425 words, so much of what we learn in the ramp-up to writing never sees print. Column Extras give State Worker blog users more information -- the notes, the quotes and the documents that inform the weekly feature.

Our column in today's fiber/cyber Bee looks at one small sliver of state government, the Department of Social Services, and how a well-intentioned Monday e-mail from Director John Wagner illustrates confusion, even at the highest levels, over how the 2010-11 budget and state employee furloughs.

Click here to read Wagner's Monday memo to the troops. Here's the text of the e-mail issued on Wednesday to reel in the incorrect info.

Two union sources have told The State Worker that, as we reported earlier today, the Schwarzenegger administration has told labor leaders that furloughs will continue for bargaining units without contracts through June 30, 2011.

The administration informed the unions this afternoon. It doesn't know yet whether the policy will be formalized via executive order or some other means, one union source told us, and it's not clear when the formal announcement will be made.

The 2010-11 budget contains language that allows the governor to use "reductions in employee compensation achieved through the collective bargaining process or through existing administrative actions for represented employees and a proportionate reduction for nonrepresented employees (utilizing existing authority of the administration to adjust compensation for nonrepresented employees) in the total amounts of $896,000,000 from General Fund items and $661,000,000 from items relating to other funds."

The words, "existing administrative actions," is legislative code for furloughs for unionized workers in BUs that don't have a contract.

Several dozen blog users have sent the following questions our way, in one form or another, about the SEIU Local 1000 tentative agreement:

Will the terms of the SEIU agreement affect all of its members? Including its members at the agencies that have never been affected by furloughs? (Mainly constitutional agencies.)

The SEIU tentative agreements affect everyone in each bargaining unit, regardless of where they work. If voting members ratify the deal, it's "Hello, 12 unpaid days off," for employees working under constitutional officers, at State Compensation Insurance Fund and other currently furlough-free departments, just like everyone else.

Our guess -- and this is just a guess -- is that it's unlikely that workers covered by the TA and who work in constitutional agencies and departments will have to take any make-up furlough time. Why? Because the governor used his line-item veto power to cut the constitutionals' budget by amounts equal to the payroll savings from furloughs. Reaching back to impose furlough makeups -- or imposing them now -- would be a sort of budgetary double-jeopardy.

However, we've asked the Department of Personnel Administration its position. We'll let you know what they say.

If the contract is effective July 1, 2010 then how will we make up the 3 percent increase in our pension payments for July, August, September, October, and November? Will they pro rate the increases for those months over a period of time?

The increased pension payments start the pay period after the deal is ratified. The rate won't be prorated to make up for lower contributions at the start of the 2010-11 fiscal year.

Here's part of an e-mail that typifies dozens we've received since midnight on Wednesday:

In reading the information about the contract I could not help but wonder, "What the heck is a professional development day?" Are they personal holidays to cover the two lost days?

Whatever you do, don't call them "personal holidays" -- although that's essentially what they are.

The administration says that employees can take PDDs (just what the state needs, another acronym) just like vacation time. But there's an expectation (wink wink) that the time away from work will be used to pursue professionally enriching activities. The state won't track how the time off is used.

The SEIU deal that went down in flames last year was rejected by GOP legislators in part because of a provision that added two floating personal days that replaced the Columbus Day and Lincoln's Birthday holidays that the MOU erased.

The trade-off outraged several Republicans, we've been told, even though the change would have saved the state some money by cutting down on the number of premium pay days.

Two important differences between PDD and other forms of personal paid leave: Professional development days have to be used each year or lost, and they accrue no cash value.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered compensation cuts for state managers and supervisors that mirror those in the tentative labor contracts reached with SEIU Local 1000 and six other unions.

From the administration's press release:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today issued Executive Order (EO) S-15-10 directing the Department of Personnel Administration to adopt a comprehensive plan to reduce employee compensation for non-represented state employees, including supervisors and managers; non-statutory exempt state employees; and statutory exempt employees. The plan shall be similar to the recently negotiated contract agreements with seven unions including increasing employees' monthly pension contribution and a 12-month personal leave program where salaries will be reduced equal to one day of pay per month. It will also roll back retirement formulas used to calculate pension payments for new employees to pre-1999 levels.

The administration says that the order affects 35,000 employees. All told, 167,000 union and exempt workers are now under new working terms (or will be, assuming all ratify their tentative agreements). Unions representing another 63,000 state workers haven't accepted contracts with concessions.

We've asked the administration how many employees the order will impact. We'll update this post when we find out.

Click here to read Executive Order S-15-10.

With the Oct. 8 deadline for CalPERS health program open enrollment nearing, it's worth noting that federal law now says that qualifying adult children of workers covered by medical insurance can be carried on their parents' plan until age 26.

Until now, the cut off for dependent coverage was 23, earlier if they married. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act extends that another three years and ends the marriage disqualification. However, as this paragraph from CalPERS' open enrollment press release explains, qualifying dependents who lost coverage or will soon lose it must be added back to their parent's plan to be covered next year:

(Federal health care reform) extended the coverage of adult children from age 23 to age 26. CalPERS health plan participants' adult children lost, or will lose, coverage by reaching age 23 by November 30, or due to marriage. Those members must take action during Open Enrollment to resume coverage for those dependents up to age 26 and coverage will resume effective January 1, 2011. Dependents dropped from coverage will not be automatically added back to the health plan. Coverage for any dependent turning age 23 December 1, or after, will automatically be continued.

This change isn't limited to CalPERS members -- it applies to all health insurance plans -- and there are some strings attached. (For example, you can't currently add a 23- to 26-year-old dependent if he or she works for an employer that offers health insurance.)

Click here for our earlier post with links to more details about CalPERS' open enrollment. The press release referenced above also has CalPERS' contact info for anyone who needs open enrollment guidance.

IMAGE: www.freeditigalphotos.net / jscreationzs

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has ruled that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's and the Department of Personnel Administration's refusal to recognize Lincoln's Birthday and Columbus Day as state paid holidays violated collective bargaining laws.

In the same decision, Judge Timothy Frawley said that overtime rule changes enacted by the Legislature and enforced by the administration were legal.

Today's decision affects about 105,000 state workers represented by unions that were party to the lawsuit: SEIU Local 1000, California Association of Professional Scientists and California Association of Psychiatric Technicians.

Frawley's final writ is pending, but CAPT attorney Steve Bassoff said that the decision means that state workers in bargaining units covered by those unions will get whatever holiday compensation is owed to them for time worked on Columbus Day last year or Lincoln's Birthday this year.

"Whatever their contract provides for, that's what's in effect," Bassoff said this afternoon.

The unions acknowledged that lawmakers and Schwarzenegger changed state law last year to eliminate Columbus Day and Lincoln's Birthday as paid holidays. They also acknowledge that their contracts expired long before the holiday legislation.

But the three unions told Frawley that the Dills Act, which spells out state labor contract rules, keeps the provisions of expired contracts in place until new terms are negotiated. They argued that the administration's actions -- which included disciplining anyone who continued treating the holidays as a paid day off -- violated the law.

SEIU President Yvonne Walker flatly told members last fall that, "October 12, 2009, is a holiday and employees should not come to work."

Frawley agreed that lawmakers didn't supersede the Dills Act with last year's holiday legislation. Since the union contracts specified Columbus Day and Lincoln's Birthday were paid days off, the compensation terms for those days remained in force.

Today Walker said, "It's unfortunate that these questions had to be asked and litigated.
at a significant cost to the state, especially when it didn't need to happen."

Walker predicted that the administration will appeal, "no doubt."

The State Worker has contacted the administration for comment. It's not clear what the administration's position will be regarding Columbus Day on Oct. 11.

An administration appeal would automatically freeze any back wage payments to state workers and could allow the state to continue the no-holiday policy while the case runs through the court system. The unions could ask the court to go ahead with paying state workers while the case is appealed.

Frawley's ruling covers Columbus Day holidays and Lincoln's Birthday holidays denied since February 2009. His ruling for CAPT excludes holidays occurring after July 1 of this year, since the union has agreed to a contract from that date through July 2012 that eliminates both holidays.

The judge sided with the administration's position that changes to the law that eliminated counting leave time toward the threshold for overtime was legal. That change was part of the same legislative package that eliminated the two paid holidays.

Space constraints limit our State Worker column on Thursdays to roughly 400 words, so much of what we learn in the ramp-up to writing never sees print. Column Extras give State Worker blog users more information -- the notes, the quotes and the documents that inform the weekly feature.

Part of today's State Worker column looks at a new report on the impact of wage information on employees. The research used The Bee's state worker pay database to gauge how knowledge of colleagues' pay affected workers at University of California campuses in Los Angeles, Santa Cruz and San Diego.

Click here to read the report by researchers David Card, Alexandre Mas, Enrico Moretti and Emmanuel Saez.

State workers would pay thousands of dollars more to purchase service credits under a policy change that CalPERS leaders will consider next week.

The fund's Board of Administration is looking at immediately raising the cost of Additional Retirement Service Credit Purchases, or "airtime," by up to an average of 23 percent for state workers. The table above, which comes from this CalPERS staff report, shows how the proposed increase would affect the state's miscellaneous employees in various age groups who make $50,000 per year.

When legislation passed during the 2003-04 legislative session made airtime available to CalPERS members, the assumption was that many employees would purchase service time mid-career. That would allow the employees' money to grow until they retired and then drew against the funds.

It didn't happen. After studying CalPERS member retirement patterns and service-credit purchases over a 10-year span, the fund's staff found that members bought airtime shortly before retiring, which meant the added contribution had little or no time to grow before being drawn down.

That's why CalPERS' staff ...

Reminder: CalPERS health plan open enrollment starts on Monday and runs through Oct. 8. This page has plenty of links to the pertinent info, including this open enrollment newsletter with details about how to enroll or change your health plan.

IMAGE: www.freeditigalphotos.net / jscreationzs

Assembly Bill 1699, which aimed to make state worker payroll a continuous appropriation, failed to get two-thirds of the state Senate vote needed to pass on Tuesday, the last day of the legislative session.

The measure fell four votes shy of the 27 it needed in the 40-member upper house, with 10 senators voting against it and six senators failing to vote. One seat in the Senate is vacant. Click here to see a list of how the lawmakers voted.

Assemblyman Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, authored the bill. State employee unions had rallied behind it since it would have shielded state worker pay from being withheld during a budget impasse. Senate Democrats tried to pry loose Republican opposition by amending the bill to confer continuous appropriation status on payments to businesses that provide goods and services to the state during a budget impasse.

Hernandez put up similar legislation earlier this year, but the Senate blocked it. The state employee unions, particularly the scientists and the engineers groups, have been pushing for years to get the law changed.

We expect the legislation to resurface during the Legislature's next session.

Over at our sister blog, Capitol Alert, Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Keven Yamamura has a report on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's comments about public employee unions at an event in Goleta.

Here's the top of Kevin's report:

The closer Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets to leaving office and the longer the budget stalemate drags out, the more frank he seems to become.

Speaking today at the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Republican governor had no qualms about attacking public employee unions, whom he blamed for high costs everywhere in government.

In a perfect Schwarzenegger world, courtroom cameras would replace court reporters, courthouses would use private security guards and schools would hire local gardeners rather than union employees to mow the lawn.

Click here to read the rest of, "Schwarzenegger shoots from the hip with business leaders."

PHOTO CREDIT: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks Aug. 6 in Santa Clara in front of a chart showing the difference between public and private sector job losses during a two-year period. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/ Getty Images)

Furlough court fights have dominated the news, but don't forget that the Legislature is considering several bills of keen interest to state workers, including ...

MOU bills: The State Worker has calls out to the Legislature regarding Senate Bill 846 and Assembly Bill 1592. The two bills cover labor agreements reached with bargaining units 5, 8, 12, 16, 18 and 19. They're in the final stages of legislative action before going to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk for his signature.

Furlough time that state workers have on the books can now stay in the bank indefinitely, according to a memo issued Thursday by the Department of Personnel Administration.

PML 2010-015 outlines the well-known details of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest furlough order: The policy reduces state workers' pay by an amount equal to three days per month with most employees taking off commensurate time off the second, third and fourth Fridays. Several departments, union bargaining units and a few employee classifications also are exempt.

Then, at the bottom of the second page, this two-line paragraph:

The Department of Personnel Administration sent a draft pay letter to the State Controller's Office on Wednesday that defines the specifics of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's furlough order.

The SCO will return the letter with appropriate codes filled in. DPA will then issue the final document.

Click here and here to read the furlough pay instructions.

On a related note, SEIU Local 1000 plans to ask Alameda Superior Court Judge Steven Brick for a temporary restraining order to stop furloughs until a full hearing can be scheduled to debate the policy.

The TRO request will be heard Monday, the union says. The first "Furlough Friday" under the new executive order is set for Aug. 13.

Local 1000 also has a lawsuit before Brick that seeks to expand the number of "special fund" departments that the union says should be exempt from furloughs. Click here to read more about it.

Wednesday's order to resume furloughs next month essentially doubled-down Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bet that he has the authority to impose unpaid days off on state workers. It's also a high-stakes gamble that the policy will wring concessions from state labor unions and squeeze the Legislature, now seven weeks late on passing a budget, to craft a deal that includes significant reductions to employee pensions.

Will it work?

Correction: An earlier version of this post included psychiatric technicians as a group that will work on a self-directed furlough schedule. Psychiatric technicians are exempt from furloughs under the terms of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest furlough order. We regret the error.

Welcome to Day 30 without a 2010-11 state budget. Here's one way to think of the delay's cost to state workers:

The Schwarzenegger administration figures that each day that the state goes without a budget costs the state another $50 million. That means as of today, the state has burned through $1.5 billion due to legislative inertia.

The Legislature has been on paid vacation this month.

Coincidently, the furlough program ordered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lops off just about $50 million in state payroll costs for every day that the 156,000 workers impacted by it take an unpaid day off. (Many employees such as correctional officers will work full schedules, take the pay hit but may have to defer the time off, depending on departmental needs.)

In other words, it would take 10 months of furloughs just to make up for cash burned through by lawmakers' budgetary procrastination.

Editor's note: This post has been changed to specify the departments excluded from the governor's furlough order. It also clarifies payroll cost savings from furloughs last year.

Less than one month after ending furloughs for about 200,000 state workers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning brought back a scaled-down version of the policy, effective Sunday.

The governor made the decision this week after Controller John Chiang said that unless lawmakers enacted a budget soon, the state's cash would go into the red by October. Chiang said he'll start issuing IOUs in August or September to conserve funds as long as possible.

"We have a fiscal crisis," Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said this morning as he explained the new furlough order. "We're doing what we have to do to conserve cash."

Like the policy that ended June 30, the governor's new executive order requires employees take three unpaid days off per month. The administration figures the payroll savings will amount to $147.2 million per month, about $80 million of that from the general fund.

But unlike the earlier policy, this one has no termination date: Furloughs will end when lawmakers pass a 2010-11 budget. That could be weeks or months after the Legislature reconvenes on Monday.

And unlike earlier policies, the new order exempts employees who work several departments, specifically the Board of Equalization and the Franchise Tax Board, the Employment Development Department, State Compensation Insurance Fund, the California Housing Finance Authority and the California Earthquake Authority. All employees of the Highway Patrol and the Department of Fire and Forestry Protection are also exempt.

The order doesn't explain the criteria for deciding to exclude those departments.

Thursday was sort of a finish line for long-suffering state workers since it was the last day that the State Controller's Office could make mass changes to July payroll.

That means formerly furloughed state workers on Aug. 1 will receive paychecks reflecting full hours and pay for the first time in 17 months. The August checks for straight time worked will be nearly 15 percent more than those issued on July 1.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lifted furloughs on June 30. The next day he issued instructions to withhold state worker pay to the federal minimum. A court last week refused to force Controller John Chiang to comply this month. A hearing before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette will likely be scheduled for late August, but it's likely that will come after the payroll change deadline for Sept. 1 checks.

How long will it last? It's not clear what will happen with the minimum-wage court fight, so let's set that aside.

As we've reported, the Government Accounting Standards Board last month issued its preliminary thinking on major issues related to pension accounting and financial reporting by employers. The potential impact of the rule changes could be far-reaching with serious political repercussions. The Bee's Dan Walters wrote about GASB's proposals in this column.

GASB has been taking public comment on the proposed rule changes. The deadline for submitting one is Sept. 17. A few State Worker blog users have asked how they can participate.

You can click here to send an e-mail to the board's director of research and technical activities at director@gasb.org. Reference Project No. 34 in the subject line.

Send letters to:

Director of Research and Technical Activities
Project No. 34
GASB
401 Merritt 7
PO Box 5116
Norwalk, CT 06856-5116

Click here for a plain-English explanation of the proposed rules. This link opens analysis of the potential impact to state and local government by The Segal Group. You can view a video Q&A about the GASB proposals by clicking here.

We're hearing that two bills to ratify the minimum wage protections promised to the six bargaining units that have reached tentative agreements with the administration will be published by the end of this week.

Assembly Bill 1592 by Democrat Assembly members Joan Buchanan (author), Alyson Huber and Pedro Nava (co-authors) will be amended to carry Bargaining Units 8 (California Department of Forestry Firefighters), 16 (Union of American Physicians and Dentists) and 19 (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees).

Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Torey Van Oot reported that the Fair Political Practices Commission on Friday issued an advice letter to the Senate Banking, Finance & Insurance Committee that employees do not have to report no-interest budget impasse loans as gifts or income on their statements of economic interests -- as long as the loans are offered to all state employees who are members of the institutions.

FPPC drew up the letter after concerns arose in some quarters that at least one bank -- one of the many that didn't announce a no-interest state worker loan program earlier this month -- was telling state workers that such loans had to be reported.

For now, the matter is moot except for legislative employees, who get no pay until a budget is approved. Judge Patrick Marlette's decision on Friday means that the state won't withhold pay to the federal minimum for about 200,000 state employees for this month or next while litigation plays out in Sacramento Superior Court.

Still, we recommend you check out Torey's post on our sister blog, Capitol Alert, for more info and a link to the FPPC advice letter.

IMAGE: www.stock.xchng.com

Here are some of the press releases and comments received by The State Worker after today's news that Judge Patrick Marlette declined to force Controller John Chiang to immediately begin issuing minimum wage paychecks. Click on each entry to read the entire release or e-mail.

"We're gratified that the court acknowledged the existence of the significant legal concerns surrounding the governor's minimum wage order and made what we believe is the right decision at the right time." - CCPOA Executive Vice President Chuck Alexander

"We are confident we will continue to win on the merits of this case, as we already have done twice. We hope the Legislature passes a budget by then so we don't have to pay our employees minimum wage." - Lynelle Jolley, Department of Personnel Administration spokeswoman

"I am pleased the court ruling today spared taxpayers and California's economy from further harm." - State Controller John Chiang

"Today's ruling likely galvanizes John Chiang's political operation but it unfortunately continues to highlight the fact that we wouldn't be in this situation had John Chiang used the millions taxpayers gave him to upgrade his payroll system over four years ago." - Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, who is running against Chiang for controller

"The judge's ruling means that 95,000 Local 1000 members and their families will be able to buy food and pay their bills for another month while we continue to work for a long-term solution in the Legislature and at the bargaining table." - Yvonne Walker, SEIU Local 1000 president

"Today's court ruling is legally sound, fiscally responsible and morally upright. The Governor's minimum wage order is nothing more than a ploy to gain leverage in budget negotiations by threatening the livelihoods of innocent, hardworking Californians." - Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento

"We are happy with the ruling that state engineers and all state employees will get paid in full for the work that they do. State employees up and down the state can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for the moment." - Bruce Blanning, executive director of the Professional Engineers in California Government

Assembly Bill 1699, which would make state worker pay a continuous appropriation -- and therefore not subject to minimum-wage withholding during a budget impasse -- has cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee and now goes to the Senate floor.

The committee vote was 6-1. Democrats Christine Kehoe, Ellen Corbett, Mark Leno, Curren Price, Lois Wolk and Leland Yee supported the measure. Republican Mimi Walters voted against it. Republican Bill Emmerson abstained.

The bill isn't yet scheduled for a floor vote. If the Senate approves the measure, authored by Assemblyman Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, it could go back to the Assembly for a concurrence vote if the Senate makes changes. If the measure passes the Senate without being altered, it would go to the governor's desk.

It needs a two-thirds vote to pass because it is written to take immediate effect.

Controller John Chiang visited The Bee's Capitol Bureau offices this morning for a wide-ranging conversation with reporters and editors about the state budget, his campaign for reelection and his legal battles with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger over paying state workers minimum wage.

In this clip, Chiang responds to charges that he is fighting the governor's minimum-wage pay instructions at the behest of public employee unions.

Videographer Hector Amezcua is editing more clips. We'll post them as they become available throughout the day.

Representatives of the Association of California State Supervisors, an organization that advocates on behalf of exempt state employees, posted notes last week from its Thursday meet and confer with the Department of Personnel Administration.

According to those notes, ACSS pushed the administration for seven guarantees In exchange for pension concessions similar to those agreed to by six bargaining units:

• Protection from minimum wage.
• Furlough protection through July 1, 2013.
• Benefit cost increases to be picked up by the state.
• An added 5 percent salary step added to the top of each pay scale.
• No more than eight unpaid leave days through June 30, 2011.
• An option to transfer the value of leave hours above the cap into an investment program.
• An extension on the June 30, 2012 deadline to use up banked furlough hours.

Click here to read the ACSS minutes.

UPDATE 5:20 p.m.: The hearing has been rescheduled for 11 a.m. Friday
State Controller John Chiang's motion to disqualify Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley has been granted, and the minimum-wage case has been shifted to Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette, pictured at left.

State employees may remember Marlette as the judge who last year upheld Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's furlough order. It is unclear whether Wednesday's hearing will be rescheduled for later in the week.

UPDATE 5:00 p.m. Judge Patrick Marlette has been assigned to replace Judge Timothy Frawley in the minimum-wage case. Read the post here.

Lawyers for State Controller John Chiang today moved to disqualify Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley from hearing the high-stakes case over whether state employees should receive minimum wage if no state budget is approved.

The motion is under consideration, but typically is granted in such cases.

In the motion, Chiang attorney Bryant Delgadillo declared that Frawley "is prejudiced against SCO (state controller's office) or its interests, such that I believe that SCO cannot have a fair or impartial trial before this judge."

Frawley was the judge who ruled against Chiang last year in the original minimum-wage fight that Schwarzenegger brought in 2008.

Chiang spokeswoman Hallye Jordan said the initial hearing in the current case, set for Wednesday, is likely to proceed, but with a new judge.

Because the state has entered the fiscal year without an approved budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has told Chiang to pay about 200,000 state employees the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, with back pay to come after the budget is enacted. Chiang has refused. The Republican governor is hoping for an order to force Democrat Chiang's hand in the matter.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's effort to reduce pay to minimum wage for some 200,000 state workers will be heard in Sacramento Superior Court next Wednesday.

Judge Timothy Frawley set the hearing for 9 a.m. Schwarzenegger is seeking a temporary restraining order to force Controller John Chiang to pay most workers minimum wage until state lawmakers approve a budget.

Chiang contends the governor's order is illegal and has said he will not comply unless ordered by a court. The Democrat has filed his own court action on the issue.

By Susan Ferriss
sferriss@sacbee.com

At a Capitol meeting today, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger relied on the support of a Democratic icon -- former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown - to bolster the governor's new demand that specific changes in state worker pensions be made before he will sign off on a state budget.

At a minimum, the governor said, he wants legislators to roll back current pension terms to those that existed before 1999 legislation created more generous rules.

Watch Bee colleague Hector Amezcua's video above. Read the full story over at Capitol Alert.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued directions to state departments to "make every effort to eliminate the use of overtime" until a budget is passed.

The memo, dated Wednesday, went to all agency secretaries for distribution throughout the bureaucracy.

Under the governor's minimum-wage order, employees who work overtime during a pay period must be paid full salary. Part of Controller John Chiang's legal case against the governor is that he has no accurate way of knowing which employees will work overtime in a given month because the cutoff for payroll processing occurs about 10 days before the end of the pay period.

Read the memo here.

By Jim Sanders
jsanders@sacbee.com

State Controller John Chiang filed suit today in an attempt to block Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's order to reduce pay for most state workers to the federal minimum wage during the current budget impasse.

Chiang's suit, filed in Sacramento Superior Court, complains that he is being forced to choose between violating Schwarzenegger's order or violating various federal and state laws.

The controller's lawsuit follows a 3rd District Court of Appeal ruling last week that confirmed Schwarzenegger's authority to reduce pay to the federal minimum, currently $7.25 per hour.

Schwarzenegger has argued that under a 2003 California Supreme Court decision he is required, absent a state budget, to cut pay for most state workers to the minimum required under federal law.

Chiang has argued, among other things, that the state's antiquated payment system cannot reduce pay quickly and then restore it on a timely basis when a budget deal is struck.

Read a longer, more in-depth post about Chiang's cross complaint over at our sister blog, Capitol Alert.

And read the cross-complaint here.

PHOTO CREDIT: State Controller John Chiang testifies before the Senate Committee on Governmental Organization on Aug. 4, 2008, regarding the governor's executive order to lay off some state workers and also reduce their wages to minimum wage. Sacramento Bee file photo / Randy Pench

The Schwarzenegger administration filed a new legal action today asking the Sacramento Superior Court to force Controller John Chiang to pay state employees minimum wage for this month if no state budget is enacted.

Chiang has said he will not comply with the governor's order to pay minimum wage for the July pay period. Filed by the Department of Personnel Administration and DPA Director Debbie Endsley, the action seeks to force Chiang to comply. It noted that the cut-off date to begin processing the July payroll is July 22.

It says the order is "urgently needed" to stop Chiang from paying full salaries.

"Unless restrained, Respondents will continue to illegally issue full salaries to state employees for every pay period in which no state budget or other available appropriation exists," the suit says. "Respondents must be enjoined from violating the law as soon as possible and prior its occurrence."

With legislative deliberations far from resolved over how to close an estimated $19.1 billion budget gap, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told Chiang last week to pay state employees the minimum until a budget is approved. Back pay would be made up later after the budget is approved.

As he did in 2008, Chiang has refused for several reasons, including concerns that the state's payroll technology and accounting methods make it impossible to comply without breaking federal labor law.

Sacramento Superior Court and the 3rd District Court of Appeal have both sided with Schwarzenegger in lawsuits that the governor brought in the 2008 budget impasse. Today's filing seeks to have the court enforce those decisions on Chiang.

Chiang last week said he would file his own action "to definitively resolve the issue of whether our current payroll system is capable of complying with the minimum-wage order in a way that protects taxpayers from billions of dollars in fines and penalties."

Read the Schwarzenegger administration's filing here.

Aaron McLear, who often speaks on behalf of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, talked with KCRA (Channel 3) on Friday about the legal fight over withholding state worker pay to minimum wage and connected it with the state budget stalemate.

During the interview McLear expresses regret that "valuable public servants who do a great job for the people of California" face an increasing likelihood of "minimum wage, more furloughs and layoffs" as budget talks drag on into the new fiscal year.

Click the viewer above to see the interview.

Catching up with news that we had to set aside to cover Thursday's and Friday's minimum wage action ...

Last week we reported that the Department of Personnel Administration hadn't posted the tentative agreements reached with CAHP, CDFF, AFSCME and CAPT, although the deals were announced way back on June 16.

DPA hadn't forwarded the paperwork to the Legislature, either, delaying the start of the 10-day clock for the Legislative Analyst's review of the tentative pacts.

On Thursday afternoon, DPA put the four agreements online. Click here to open the administration's index of bargaining unit contracts and tentative agreements.

And Friday, Jason Sisney, director of State Finance for the LAO, sent us a one-line e-mail from his iPhone:

Jon, DPA has submitted the first 4 MOUs and our 10 day clock on those has begun. Jason

Next up: The tentative deals announced on June 27 with IUOE (Bargaining Unit 12) and UAPD (BU 16).

Editor's note, July 3 at 8:20 a.m: The original July 2 version of this post did not include the link to the letter from the controller's office. We have republished the post here and included the pertinent link.

Collin Wong-Martinusen, chief of staff for Controller John Chiang, replied to the Department of Personnel's pay letter this afternoon. While courteous in tone, the message is clear: The SCO will not comply.

The grounds for refusing: Reducing state worker pay to minimum wage or zero isn't feasible techologically, procedurally or legally. In the letter to DPA Director Debbie Endsley, Wong-Martinusen references a 2008 list of reasons that SCO couldn't or wouldn't carry out the pay withholding.

Click here to read the entire letter.

The Golden 1 Credit Union, which counts about 100,000 state workers among its members, on Friday said that it will offer "State Budget Payroll loans" to members with checking and direct deposit if their pay is withheld to zero or the federal minimum because of California's budget impasse.

Click here to read the Sacramento-based credit union's press release.

For more information, contact The Golden 1's call center at (916) 732-2900 or (877) 465-3361. It's open Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Schools Financial Credit Union also announced a "Budget Impasse Loan" program for members with direct deposit. "In addition, extensions of loan payments are available for existing members with a Schools loan whose loss of income has resulted from the budget impasse," according to the Sacramento-based cooperative's press release.

Call (916) 569-5400 or (800) 962-0990 for more details about those programs. Hours: Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Thanks to about a dozen State Worker blog users who let us know immediately when Golden 1 made its announcement. Hat tip to blog users T and J for flagging the Schools info.

Added July 7: We reported last week that SAFE Credit Union announced a state worker member loan program. Click here for more information.

IMAGE: www.hasslefreeclipart.com

SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker said in this press release that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger "is once again using state workers as pawns in his budget game," with a minimum wage order that "blindsided" the union.

Local 1000 resumed talks with the administration on Monday. The union, which represents more California public employees than any other, has a recent rocky history with Schwarzenegger. Last year it negotiated a deal that its members ratified, then Republicans in the Legislature refused to sign off on it, killing the deal.

Walker blames Schwarzenegger. The administration says the governor's party acted on its own.

"We're calling on the governor to stop playing games, stop using state workers as pawns and get to work on an agreement," Walker said in today's release.

In a lengthy and detailed e-mail to its members on Thursday, CASE lays out what's happening with contract talks ("... the Bargaining Team will continue to negotiate ..."), litigation ("... we have filed numerous briefs in our various furlough lawsuits ...") and minimum wage ("... , it is possible that pay for the July pay period ... could be in jeopardy ...")

In an analysis of the promise made by Schwarzenegger that unions with tentative agreements won't be subject to minimum wage, the CASE letter notes:

It's official. Furloughs are over.

The Department of Personnel Administration issued pay letters at the close of business on Wednesday instructing the State Controller's Office to eliminate Pay Differential 378. That's the February 2009 instruction that put furloughs in place.

This doesn't mean the governor can't issue another furlough executive order in the event of a "fiscal emergency." Nor does the pay letter have anything to do with a possible minimum wage instruction to the controller if budget talks drag on for long.

But as of this moment state workers are officially back on regular work schedules.

Click here to read the PL 10-14 cover letter with instructions. Here's the document noting that that Pay Differential 378 is abolished as of today.

We've received a flurry of e-mail that asks the same question: Is my bank/credit union offering low- or no-interest loans if my pay is withheld to minimum wage?

One, SAFE Credit Union has stepped up so far. Here's the e-mail the cooperative sent to The State Worker on Wednesday afternoon:

We've been hearing from state workers who want to know if The Golden 1 credit union plans to offer low- or no-interest loans to state workers if a budget impasse leads to minimum wage.

So we asked Terry Halleck, president and chief executive of The Golden 1. She said that the Sacramento-based cooperative is "monitoring" budget developments, but stopped short of saying that it will loan money to state workers if their pay is temporarily withheld.

And until the state does something definitive, the company won't have anything else to say, Halleck told The State Worker.

For years, The Golden 1 has offered zero-interest loans to the 1,100 or so legislative staff who receive no pay when lawmakers fail to pass a budget by the June 15 constitutional deadline. Only Golden 1 members with direct payroll deposit qualify for those loans, however.

During the 2008 budget impasse, the credit union teed up a broader loan program when it looked like state employees' pay was going to be withheld. Click here to read more about how the plan would have worked had Chiang complied with the pay letters.

California state employees started The Golden 1 in 1935. Today, roughly 100,000 of its 680,000 members are state workers. The credit union is California's largest financial co-op and the sixth-biggest in the country with nearly $7 billion in assets.

As the July 1 start of the new fiscal year approaches -- and the threat of state worker pay being held to the federal minimum wage looms -- a question has arisen about the tentative agreements reached last week by CAPT, CAHP, CDFF and AFSCME. How do those four deals protect those unions' members from minimum wage or furloughs since they aren't yet binding contracts?

Controller John Chiang and Schwarzenegger administration spokesman Aaron McLear crossed swords Thursday on Patt Morrison, a Southern California public radio show that airs on KPCC (FM 89.3). Union representative Dave Low also joined the discussion for the first part of the broadcast.

The discussion mostly focused on the state worker minimum wage battle in the 3rd District Court of Appeal. Chiang's opening rhetorical question: "Why are innocent taxpayers and public servants always the first to suffer whenever the governor and legislature fail to do their jobs?" He said he's trying to protect the state from big fines because the state's payroll processing methods won't allow his office to withhold wages and then restore full pay within federal fair labor standards.

We've received several e-mails from State Worker blog users laying out this scenario:

Let's say in the next few days that Controller John Chiang loses his appeal to overturn the Gilb v. Chiang, the court decision that he overstepped his bounds in 2008 by refusing to issue minimum wage checks to state workers.

Then 2010-11 budget talks drag past the June 30 end of the fiscal year. The Department of Personnel Administration then issues pay letters that instruct Chiang to withhold state workers' pay to the minimum allowed by federal law.

Then what? Would the controller go ahead and issue full-wage checks anyway? We asked Chiang spokesman Jacob Roper that question. Here's what he said:

Department of Personnel Administration Director Debbie Endsley has sent a memo to all California state agencies that lays out the Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's position on furloughs (they're over ... for now) and the possibility of employee pay being withheld to minimum wage (he'll do it if there's no budget).

The latter assumes, of course, that the 3rd District Court of Appeals doesn't overturn a lower court ruling that State Controller John Chiang overstepped his authority by refusing to implement a similar wage withholding order during the 2008-09 budget impasse.

Here's the memo, which at least some agencies are forwarding to their workers:

Here's an update on the furlough and minimum wage situations.

With respect to furloughs, the current program ends June 30, and the Administration expects the State to resume normal hours of operation in July. The Governor's budget proposal includes four proposals to reduce employee compensation costs: a wage cut, one day per month of unpaid leave, increased employee contributions to pensions, and the workforce cap. The Governor retains the right and authority to order furloughs if necessary to address a fiscal and cash crisis.

As for the prospect of state workers receiving minimum wage in lieu of full wages, it will depend on when the Legislature and the Governor reach a budget agreement. The California Supreme Court ruled in 2003 (White v. Davis) that absent an appropriation, which for most of the payroll comes through the annual state budget, the Controller is prohibited from paying state workers beyond what is required by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Absent a state budget, we will send instructions to the Controller to pay wages in accordance with the FLSA for the July pay period.

The four unions that recently reached tentative agreements on new contracts (CHP officers, firefighters, psychiatric technicians, and some medical professionals) would not be subject to any new furlough program or minimum wage payments, assuming their contracts are ratified in a timely manner.

Debbie Endsley

Sacramento's 3rd District Court of Appeal will hear oral arguments in Gilb v. Chiang this morning at 9:30 a.m. We expect the hearing to run an hour or a little longer.

The appeal is contesting a lower court decision that Controller John Chiang overstepped his authority in 2008 by refusing to comply with Department of Personnel Administration pay letters ordering state workers' pay temporarily withheld to the federal minimum wage. Then-DPA Director Dave Gilb sued Chiang in Sacramento Superior Court and eventually won.

The controller's office circulated a memo to state employee unions earlier this month, speculating on today's hearing and its eventual outcome: "Given the 3rd DCA's right-leaning composition and its past history of adverse rulings relating to labor interests, we should prepare for a ruling which affirms the trial court's decision," the memo says. "If this occurs, the Controller may be ordered to pay minimum wage as early as the July payroll, which is scheduled to be paid on August 1st."

Click here for our June 10 story about the memo. Read the memo by clicking here.

We're planning to attend this morning's hearing. Check back later for our report on the proceedings.

IMAGE: www.yolocourts.ca.gov

From the notebook items give State Worker blog users some of the notes, quotes, numbers and other background material that inform the news stories we write.

Our story in today's Bee references employee leave data provided to us by the State Controller's Office.

As the piece points out, the state over the years has used leave to pay lawsuit settlements and, in 2003, gave workers leave time instead of a scheduled raise.

Click here to see the accrued leave benefits by category data. You'll also need to open this link to find the controller's definitions of each leave category. The definitions include all types of leave, both those with cash value and those without cash value.

Parting thought: If the courts find that Schwarzenegger illegally furloughed state workers, history suggests settlement could be in leave time, not cash, for employees still on the state payroll.

IMAGE: www.freeclipart.com

CAHP, CAPT, AFSCME and CDFF have agreed to contract proposals with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The deals, ranging from two years to three years, include pension concessions and protections against minimum wage in the event of a budget impasse.

Here's the governor's press release.

Our quick story about the deals is here.

We're continuing to cover events as they unfold this afternoon.

A new post on Controller John Chiang's website mentions state employee payroll is one of several obligations that his office will continue to pay even if lawmakers fail to pass a budget by the end of this month.

Chiang spokesman Jacob Roper said that the payroll figure, $2.1 billion for July, comes from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's May budget revision and assumes the payroll cost reductions he has proposed for fiscal 2010-11. The governor has proposed cutting all state workers' pay by 5 percent and upping their pension contributions by another 5 percent of their gross pay, but there's no sign an agreement will be in place before the fiscal year begins July 1 to implement the pay cuts.

The controller also sent this letter to lawmakers, triggered by their usual failure to get a budget done by the June 15 deadline laid out in the constitution.

"At a time when the economy is showing signs of recovery, we can ill-afford the 'business as usual' approach of requiring the state to be driven to the brink of a fiscal meltdown before compromise is achieved."

This story by Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Jim Sanders has more about the largely symbolic deadline.

A bill that sought to roll back retirement benefits for newly hired state workers has failed to get out of committee.

Senate Bill 919, unveiled in April with much fanfare by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the measure's sponsor, GOP Senate Leader Dennis Hollingsworth, died in the Senate Public Employees & Retirement Committee on a 2-4 party-line vote.

The bill also included changes to retiree health benefits.

Click here to read the measure. This link opens the committee vote count.

The California Citizens Compensation Commission meets on Wednesday to vote on cutting elected officials pay by 10 percent. Click here for details about the meeting, scheduled for 10 a.m. in Sacramento.

The commission cut the pay for all the constitutional officers and legislators by 18 percent last year. PECG and CAPS have opposed whacking their pay again.

Click here to see elected officials' pay.

Negotiators for the California Association of Professional Scientists have pulled back the counterproposal that they had offered on June 3.

We spent a few minutes this morning in a "California Report" interview about the looming threat on state worker pay. You can listen to the discussion with host Rachael Myrow of KQED (88.5 FM in San Francisco and 89.3 in Sacramento) by clicking the player below.

After a brief introduction, the segment launches into clips of Controller John Chiang and H.D. Palmer with the Department of Finance. It ends with comments from state workers who talk about the politics of the budget and the impact of events on their lives.

Want to listen on the radio? This link opens a page with air times around the state for both "The California Report" daily broadcast and the weekly magazine show.

We're set to speak with Rachael Myrow of KQED's "The California Report" on Friday about the possibility that state workers' pay will be withheld to the federal minimum allowed if there's no budget in place come July.

The interview will be taped in the morning and then aired at 4:30 p.m. the same day on KQED 88.5 in the Bay Area. And it will be available on the show's website, www.californiareport.org. We'll also post a link on this blog when the audio file becomes available.

IMAGE: www.smartclipart.com

We just got off the phone with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's spokesman, Aaron McLear, who called to comment on our last post, Report: Administration backs away from 5 percent pay cut

You'll recall that DPA spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley didn't comment on the Association of California State Supervisors conclusion that 5 percent state worker pay cuts are off the table.

McLear did.

"They're flat wrong," McLear said. "Nothing, including furloughs, pay cuts and PLPs are off the table until there's a deal."

The Association of California State Supervisors is reporting that the Department of Personnel Administration is backing away from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's demand that state workers' pay be cut by 5 percent.

The association's board and staff members met with DPA Deputy Director Julie Chapman on Monday. According to these ACSS notes from the meeting, "The permanent 5 percent pay cut is off the bargaining table."

But the administration's new approach still includes cuts, according to the ACSS notes:

Today is the deadline for bills to move out of their house of origin or die.

Several bills with potential impact on state workers have been in play this session. We handicapped several Assembly measures in this post. Here's what's happened since then with those bills and one Senate measure, SB 919, supported by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Bill: AB 1699
What it does: Ensures that state employees will continue to be paid even if a budget is not enacted by the beginning of the new fiscal year.
Status: Cleared the Assembly, 54-19. Now it goes to the Senate.

Bill: AB 1765
What it does:Prohibits a state employee from being furloughed, during a time in which California's unemployment rate reaches or exceeds 8.5%, if the employee is in a position funded at least 95% by the federal government, performs services that combat the state's recession, and works for the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board or the Employment Development Department. Specifically, this bill prohibits a state employee from being furloughed when certain criteria apply.
Status: Assembly passed on a 55-14 vote. The bill now goes to the Senate.

Bill: AB 2008
What it does: Prohibits state civil service employees of certain specified agencies and boards from being furloughed by the Governor through Executive Order or by any other action of a state agency, board or commission.
Status: Assembly passed 55-21. On to the Senate.

Bill: SB 919
What it does: Alters the Public Employees' Retirement Law to reduce benefits for new hires and increase employee contributions for existing and future hires, among other changes.
Status: Stalled in Senate Public Employment & Retirement Committee, which heard testimony but never took a vote.

State workers don't have to worry that their paychecks for June will be reduced to federal minimum wage, a Department of Finance spokesman said this week, ending speculation that an arcane state budget fix last year gave Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger the authority to order wages withheld for this month.

July payroll, however, could be reduced if budget talks drag on much past the June 30 end of the fiscal year, said Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer.

State workers have been wondering if their June pay would be withheld to the least allowed by federal law, $7.25 per hour for most employees. Legislation passed last year to plug a $20 billion hole in the 2009-10 general fund budget included pushing this month's payroll expenses to the July 1 start of the 2010-11 fiscal year.

That meant, technically, that the state has no funding set aside for June payroll, which is paid July 1. And legislative consultants concluded that could have opened the door for Schwarzenegger to invoke a 2003 California Supreme Court decision that the state can't pay employees' beyond the legal minimum when there's no budgeted money for wages.

The governor invoked that court ruling when budget talks deadlocked in 2008. He ordered pay withheld with the balance returned to employees when lawmakers appropriated the money in a new budget. Controller John Chiang refused on legal and logistical grounds. Schwarzenegger sued and won a lawsuit to force Chiang to comply. Chiang filed an appeal.

Although there's no money budgeted for June payroll yet, the administration concluded that "individual departments still have appropriating authority through June 30," Palmer said. "June payroll will not be affected" by what is strictly an accounting device.

But July pay could be reduced he warned, he warned, if a budget impasse drags on into the new fiscal year.

State employee unions have tried to change the law so that state workers are paid when budget talks stall. Their latest attempt Assembly Bill 1699 cleared the lower chamber on Thursday with 54 votes and now goes to the Senate.

Meanwhile, the legal tussle between Schwarzenegger and Chiang is about to resume. Chiang's appeal goes to oral argument before the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento on June 21.

IMAGE: www.mailinglists.dof.ca.gov

Bee database whiz Phillip Reese has added 2009 UC employee salaries sacbee.com's database of California state employee wages. Search by name, agency or salary range. Click on sacbee.com/statepay.

CalPERS has a Q&A on its website that addresses what the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 means to CalPERS members.

It's worth a look. Click here to check it out.

Thanks to blog user T for calling this to our attention.

IMAGE: CalPERS headquarters / Paul Kitagaki Jr., Sacramento Bee, 2005

Assembly Bill 1699, which would make state employee pay a continuous appropriation, passed off of the Assembly Appropriations suspense file today with all committe Democrats supporting and all committee Republicans opposing.

If the Assembly passes the bill by Assemblyman Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, it would still need Senate approval before going on to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Assembly has a June 4 deadline to vote on the measure.

AB 1699 has the backing of all the state labor unions because it would prevent employee pay from being withheld to the minimum allowed by federal law when there's no money appropriated for payroll. Click here for an explanation of the issue and why this year the matter is more urgent than ever for state workers.

Hernandez sponsored a similar bill earlier this year, AB 790. which cleared the Assembly but fell short in the Senate.

IMAGE: www.assembly.ca.gov

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman said after a Roseville event this morning that she supports the state employee salary cut contained the budget revision that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released on Friday. She also crticized the governor for failing to do "the hard work" over the last few years to cut government costs.

Worth noting: Schwarzenegger has tried several of the ideas that Whitman and her GOP rival Steve Poizner have proposed, such as reviewing state government to root out waste, fraud and abuse. For more about that, check out this Sunday story written by Bee colleague Jack Chang with a hand from your humble blogger.

In related news, Whitman also talked about forming a state grand jury to go after waste, fraud and abuse, as Torey Van Oot reports on our sister blog, Capitol Alert. Whitman's campaign released this press announcement, outlining the candidate's get-tougher plan, which includes elevating the inspector general to a cabinet-level post with "real teeth."

Click here to view Bee videographer Hector Amezcua's clip of Whitman talking about some of Schwarzenegger's budget proposals.

Kern Valley State Prison correctional officer Ian Pickett, one of this blog's most prolific users, says that he and coworkers have started a week-long "State Worker Refugee Camp-out" across the street from the prison. The camp (pictured above) is intended to draw attention to, "The current attack on our pay (that) is sending a lot of us into increasing debt, becoming insurmountable," Pickett said in a mass e-mail.

Click here to view a flier promoting the camp.

IMAGE: Correctional officers have set up a makeshift camp near Kern Valley State Prison, intending to stay for a week. They're protesting pay cuts brought on by furloughs and proposed in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget.
CREDIT: Courtesy Ian Pickett

The non-partisan Legislative Analyst' Office has an analysis of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposal for state workers to take off one unpaid personal leave day per month.

The proposal would save the state's general fund roughly $446 million for fiscal 2010-11, according to administration estimates, and other funds would save about $349 million. Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Rachel Arrezola said that the plan "requires bargaining and/or legislative action."

And Schwarzenegger's budget plan still includes a 5 percent wage cut and a requirement that all state workers boost their pension contributions by 5 percent of their earnings.

"I will not sign a budget until we fix our broken systems," Schwarzenegger said this afternoon. "I will not sign a budget if we don't have pension reform and budget reform."

Bottom line: If Schwarzenegger gets everything he wants -- the leave day, the pay cut, the pension contribution hike -- state workers' take home pay would stay about the same as it is now under the soon-to-end furlough policy. But employees would work more.

From the LAO's analysis, which you can read by clicking here:

In our view, the Legislature has to decide whether employee compensation reductions should be scored and implemented subject to collective bargaining or, alternatively, whether to implement statutory measures to bypass the existing collective bargaining process, as the Governor has proposed. The PLP concept--similar in some respects to "self-directed furloughs" in departments, as well as the collectively-bargained Service Employees International Union Local 1000 agreement that was not approved in 2009--is one more option at the Legislature's disposal. The total amount of personnel cost savings that the Legislature will need to target will depend on the other choices that it makes in putting together the 2010-11 budget package.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's revised budget proposes a one-day-per-month of unpaid leave for state workers in 2010-11. The state would reduce employee pay 4.65 percent each month; employees would receive a credit to take the time off.

The credits would have no cash value, so employees couldn't get money for them upon retirement or separation from the state. However, employees would be told to use accumulated unpaid leave time before taking paid leave, a Schwarzenegger spokeswoman said.

Schwarzenegger still plans to end the current furlough program on June 30.

Read more in Kevin Yamamura's breaking news story about the budget by clicking here.

The Center for Economic Policy and Research has a new report that looks at government pay, "The Wage Penalty for State and Local Government Employees."

From the introduction:

When state and local government employees are compared to private-sector workers with similar characteristics -- particularly when workers are matched by age and education -- state and local workers actually earn 4 percent less, on average, than their private-sector counterparts. For women workers, the public-sector penalty is about 2 percent of earnings; for men, it is about 6 percent of earnings.

Here's a chart from the 20-page report that illustrates the education disparity between state and local government employees and the general population:

Click here to download the report. Thanks to blog user A for making us aware of the study.

The Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee is hearing testimony on SB 919 at 1:30 p.m. today. You'll recall that the measure, sponsored by Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth, would cut retirement benefits for new state workers. The measure would not impact benefits for current employees.

Click here to open the committee's Web page and then click "Audio" to listen to the hearing. This link opens a recent Bee feature that explains parts of the bill. Click here to read the measure's language.

Sacramento's 3rd District Court of Appeal has set June 21 at 9:30 a.m. to hear arguments in Gilb v. Chiang.

The case involves a lawsuit filed by former DPA chief Dave Gilb to force Controller John Chiang's compliance with administration pay letters that ordered state worker pay withheld to the federal minimum until a budget deal was reached.

Long after the budget impasse that prompted the order ended, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley sided with the administration. You can click here for our earlier reporting about the case with a timeline of events and strong> links to court documents.

Scroll to the bottom of this linked page to read the appellate court's hearing announcement. We'll write more about the proceeding as the date gets closer.

Space constraints limit our Thursday State Worker column to roughly 400 words, so much of what we learn in the ramp up to writing it never sees print. Column Extras give State Worker blog users more information -- the notes, the quotes and the documents behind the weekly feature.

Our State Worker column today looks at whether Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will again order state employees' wages held to the federal minimum allowed if lawmakers fail to pass an on-time budget.

But how does the law allow that?

The power to impose the federal minimum wage is tied to White v. Davis. The California Supreme Court said a 2003 decision on that state law doesn't authorize employees' pay beyond the legal minimum in the absence of money appropriated for wages in the state budget. So, when budget talks deadlock when there's no funding set aside for payroll, the door opens to temporarily cutting wages.

Click here to download White v. Davis. The key findings are summed up on pages 4 and 5, including this paragraph:

(W)e conclude that under the applicable California statutes, state employees who work during a budget impasse obtain the right, protected by the contract clauses of the federal and state Constitutions, to the state's ultimate payment of their full salary for work performed during the budget impasse; that is, when state employees work during a budget impasse, the state becomes contractually obligated ultimately to pay employees the full salary they have earned. At the same time, however, we conclude that the Court of Appeal was correct in determining that state employees do not have a contractual right actually to receive the payment of salary prior to the enactment of an applicable appropriation, and that the Controller is not authorized under state law to pay those salaries prior to such an appropriation. Thus, state law contractually guarantees that state employees ultimately will receive their full salary for work performed during a budget impasse, but state law does not authorize the Controller to disburse state funds to the employees until an applicable appropriation has been enacted.

The Schwarzenegger administration says the law compelled the governor's 2008 order to the Department of Personnel Administration to issue letters to the controller to withhold pay to the federal minimum. But clearly the decision was at least partly political as well as legal. After all, Schwarzenegger and the Legislature in earlier years had failed to agree on a budget by the June 30, but 2008 was the first time he invoked White v. Davis to withhold wages.

On Wednesday, we told you about a new state and local government pay study released by The Center for State and Local Government Excellence and the National Institute on Retirement Security.

Sharp-eyed blog user J flagged an online PowerPoint presentation of the material. It was part of a Wedneday webinar about the report. We looked it over and thought it worth posting for everyone, since it quickly distills the findings. Click here to view it.

The Center for State and Local Government Excellence and the National Institute on Retirement Security jointly released a study this morning comparing what state and local government employees earn compared with private sector workers. Among the findings researchers noted:

Jobs in the public sector typically require more education than private sector positions. State and local employees are twice as likely to hold a college degree or higher as compared to private sector employees. Only 23 percent of private sector employees have completed college, as compared to about 48 percent in the public sector.

Wages and salaries of state and local employees are lower than those for private sector employees with comparable earnings determinants, such as education and work experience. State workers typically earn 11 percent less and local workers 12 percent less.

During the last 15 years, the pay gap has grown: Earnings for state and local workers have generally declined relative to comparable private sector employees.

The pattern of declining relative earnings remains true in most of the large states examined in the study, although there does exist some state level variation.

Benefits make up a slightly larger share of compensation for the state and local sector. But even after accounting for the value of retirement, healthcare, and other benefits, state and local employees earn less than private sector counterparts. On average, total compensation is 6.8 percent lower for state employees and 7.4 percent lower for local employees than for comparable private sector employees.

Click here to download the report. This link opens the "About the Center" page on the Center for State and Local Government Excellence website. You'll notice is has ties to retirement funds. Clicking here opens the National Institute for Retirement Security's site.

Space constraints limit our Thursday State Worker column to roughly 400 words, so much of what we learn in the ramp up to writing it never sees print. Column Extras give State Worker blog users more information -- the notes, the quotes and the documents behind the weekly feature.

Big changes are coming for State Compensation Insurance Fund employees who have been commuting in company vehicles, as reported in today's State Worker column. The fund's fleet isn't part of the ongoing IRS audit of state employee company vehicle use, but you have to wonder if policies in other departments will come up short as the federal examination unfolds. And will the IRS want to look at State Fund's books?

Click here to read the e-mail sent on Tuesday to State Fund employees from Chief Operating Officer Harrison Jerome. It lays out the fund's new policy for how staff should claim state vehicle use and other changes for how its managing its fleet.

AB 790, which would have funded state worker payroll with a continuous appropriation, went down to defeat on the Senate floor Thursday. The measure fell four votes short of the 27 needed to reach two-thirds passage as an "urgency" bill that would have taken immediate effect had it become law.

Republicans withheld their votes after failing to get similar appropriations concessions for vendors that do business with the state.

The Assembly had already passed the bill.

Click here to read the measure, by Assemblyman Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina.

The unions are united behind this legislation. Expect it to resurface. Whenever lawmakers fail to pass a budget on time, it opens the door to a governor ordering state employee pay withheld to the federal minimum wage -- currently $7.25 per hour for most state workers and employee classifications.

California's full-time civil service state employees saw their pay fall more than 5 percent last year, according to a new Bee analysis of state payroll data that excludes the university systems and the Legislature.

State workers' average base pay fell from $63,815 in 2008 to $60,355 in 2009. Average total pay, which includes overtime and other pay, dropped from $70,627 to $66,813. Both measures represent a 5.4 percent decline.

The Bee's resident number cruncher, Phillip Reese, culled the numbers from data provided by the State Controller's Office.

Click the following link to see a breakdown of state employee median pay by prominent job class and the methodology behind the numbers. (The median is the point at which half the wages are less and half are more.)

Two unions are opposing a proposal to cut the pay of the state's elected officials.

Professional Engineers in California Government and California Association of Professional Scientists both think the 10 percent reduction proposed by the state's Citizens Compensation Commission Chairman Charles Murray, "is not reasonable or appropriate" and "smacks of piling on."

The commission, which sets wages for the state's elected officials, approved an 18 percent pay reduction that took effect in December. The panel is scheduled to meet April 22 to consider Murray's proposal.

Click here to read the letter by PECG President Shabbir Ahmed. This link opens the letter from Patty Velez, CAPS president.

After reading those letters, register your opinion:

Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Jack Chang, who is covering the Meg Whitman campaign today, has just reported that the GOP gubernatorial front-runner wants to institute merit pay raises for state employees.

The revelation is part of a detailed policy agenda released at a Whitman appearance today at Leisure World in Seal Beach. Click here to read more on Capitol Alert.

PHOTO CREDIT: Meg Whitman gives her opening remarks at the California Republican Party's convention in Santa Clara last Friday. Hector Amezcua/hamezcua@sacbee.com

The California Public Employees' Retirement System has scheduled five Retirement Planning Fairs for March and April. The events aim to help members plan for their retirement by giving access to government and labor representatives who can counsel on various offerings and strategies available to prepare for life after work.

Here are the locations, dates and times:

• Los Angeles, March 30 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Sheraton Los Angeles Downtown, 711 South Hope Street.
• Sacramento, April 2 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and April 3 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Sacramento Convention Center, 1400 J Street.
• Redding, April 8 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Red Lion Hotel, 1830 Hilltop Drive.
• Fresno, April 14 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Radisson Hotel, 2233 Ventura Street.

Click here to read the CalPERS press release about the fairs.

The California Citizens Compensation Commission, which sets pay rates for the state's elected officials, will meet in Burbank on April 22 to consider to review the salaries and benefits. For details, click here for the public meeting notice posted this week on the Commission's Web site.

Click here to see the current salaries for California's elected state workers, whose pay and per diem was cut 18 percent in December, despite efforts to overturn the commission's decision to give lawmakers a haircut. Click here for that story.

IMAGE: Sacramento Bee file, 2008 / Brian Baer

We can never get everything we learn into a news story. "From the notebook" posts give you some of the extra details behind the news.

One of the stories we have in today's Bee looks at the impact of state worker furloughs on banked vacation time. As part of our reporting, we asked the Department of Finance for help on compensation rules concerning cash-outs. Department spokesman H.D. Palmer sent us the code, which you can read by clicking this link.

And click here to download the data we used for the story. Hat tip to Bee colleague Phillip Reese for quickly building the spreadsheet from stats provided by the State Controller's Office.

IMAGE: www.freeclipart.com

The Bee's state employee pay database has been updated with figures for the 2009 calendar year. Our resident database maestro, Phillip Reese, set up the site to include several new features:

• 2009 data for all civil service workers.
• Past and present wages -- to view the effects of furloughs, for instance -- all at once.
• New summary tables showing highest-paid civil service workers, CSU workers, UC workers and legislative staffers.
• New details page that breaks down each person's salary -- overtime, other pay, regular pay -- for the past three years.
• Updated notes section explaining the fine print behind the numbers.

Click here to check out the updated database.