If you haven't already, check out the list of agencies, departments, boards, offices and commissions that Gov. Jerry Brown wants to ax, reorganize and consolidate, then take our poll:

Now that we've had time to digest Gov. Jerry Brown's hastily-unveiled 2012-13 budget proposal summary, we've boiled down the full list of changes he's suggesting to streamline state government:

Gov. Jerry Brown's new budget plan would eliminate a few thousand state jobs and consolidate or ax nearly 50 state organizations, according to documents released this afternoon.

Brown's first draft of the budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year that begins July 1 envisions reducing the state workforce by some 3,000 positions, mostly from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The cuts fill a small part of the $9.2 billion budget hole projected through June 2013.

When asked whether state workers could expect layoffs or job elimination through attrition, Department of Finance Director Ana Matosantos said the goal is "reductions in positions."

The administration will "try to minimize the number of layoffs" by relocating employees whose positions have been eliminated, Matosantos said during an afternoon press conference. "But the total workforce will continue to go down."

David Crane, the jobs and economic growth adviser for former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and now president of Govern for California, says that pension changes need to be part of solving the multibillion-dollar state budget deficit expected next year.

Crane, whose group aims to help elect state legislators who demonstrate the "courage" to tackle major issues facing California, issued a statement in response to the Legislative Analyst's forecast Wednesday that the Golden State is headed for a nearly $13 billion shortfall going into fiscal year 2012-2013.

State workers remember Crane as a leading voice for changing the public pension system during Schwarzenegger's last term. He continues to write about pensions, although he's not directly involved in efforts by Gov. Jerry Brown or California Pension Reform to put reform measures on the November 2012 ballot.

Here's what the Democrat and successful global investor says lawmakers need to do:

• Renew the temporary tax increase adopted in February 2009;
• Enact the mandatory single sales factor corporate tax reform proposed by Governor Brown earlier this year but dedicate the revenues from that change to the general fund; and
• Enact the pension reform proposed by Governor Brown but modified to include proposals recently outlined by some pension reform groups to save more money in the short term.

Here's the full press release:

Gov. Jerry Brown's hiring freeze order is pretty darn explicit: No hiring for jobs that aren't "critical" functions of a department's "core" mission. No hiring for positions that aren't front-line jobs providing essential front-line services, such as public safety jobs.

Toxic Substances' request No. I-0008, which we've posted below, said the department needed to hire a chief of its Office of Criminal Investigations (cost: $138,000 per year), to supervise its investigators and scientists. The public safety duties of the job made it a candidate for a freeze exemption, the department said, and leaving it empty would, "result in reduced law enforcement field presence in California."

That's not all. Leave the job unfilled, the department said, and you're weakening the deterrent for illegal hazardous waste dumping and you're hampering fair competition between businesses that follow hazardous waste handling and disposal rules and those businesses that don't.

Despite those dire predictions, the Brown administration slammed the request with three terse sentences:

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 Sunday's fiber/cyber Bee uses data culled from hundreds of pages of forms submitted by dozens of state departments, agencies and offices seeking exemptions from Gov. Jerry Brown's hiring freeze.

Over the next two weeks, we intend to post daily links to the documents we used so that you can see the figures, read the departments' arguments for hiring and the Brown administration's responses.

Here's the first batch, Air Resources through Conservation:

We're working on a story about Gov. Jerry Brown's hiring freeze. We'd like to get state workers' perspectives into the piece: What are you hearing about hiring where you work? If you've received an SROA notice and are looking for a new position, how is it going? What are colleagues telling you?

This isn't for everybody. We're looking for people who wouldn't mind being on the record. The story would make it clear that you're not speaking for your employer. If you'd like to be part of our report, we'd like to hear from you. Call (916) 321-1043 or e-mail jortiz@sacbee.com. The story's deadline is 3 p.m. on Friday.

Meanwhile, here's our hiring freeze poll question:

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation plans to terminate 841 employees in its parole division by September 2013, according to a new document issued Wednesday and obtained by The State Worker.

"Reductions reflect actual 'bodies' to be eliminated once unallocated positions, vacancies, limited term, out of class and retired annuitants have been deducted," footnotes in the document says.

The slashes to CDCR's Division of Adult Parole Operations aren't a surprise. Part of the budget that legislators and Gov. Jerry Brown passed earlier this year included shifting the state's parole functions to local government agencies. As that plan progresses, it means that state parole staff will be let go.

Who are the winners and losers from this year's state budget battles? What does the budget mean for state workers? What's the outlook for next year and beyond? Bring your budget questions and observations to a live chat with Bee Capitol Bureau reporter Kevin Yamamura starting at 11:30 a.m. today on our sister blog, Capitol Alert.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg shed some light this morning on the sort of changes to the state pension system that majority Democrats might pursue in the coming year.

"We are going to work in a bicameral fashion to ... come up with what we think is a very strong package," Steinberg said in an interview with The Bee Capitol Bureau.

The Sacramento Democrat said he and his Democratic colleagues "would have been prepared to approve a package negotiated by the governor with the Republicans" as part of an agreement to hold a special election on taxes, but now that those efforts have failed he said his caucus is now preparing to move forward with their own reforms.

"What we put forward has to be strong, it has to be real, but it doesn't have to be what those who have an ideological agenda would demand as part of a negotiated solution," he said.

Steinberg pointed to Gov. Jerry Brown's proposals to eliminate purchase of air time, prohibit so-called pension holidays and retroactive pension increases and ban payment of pension benefits to employees who are convicted of a felony related to their job as "obvious" starting blocks for the package.

While Steinberg said he is "open" to discuss how to implement a pension cap or a 401k-style hybrid system for new employees "on a purely voluntary basis," he said he would not support altering future benefits of existing employees.

"I think they're vested rights," he said.

Steinberg said whether he will seek to put pension fixes on the ballot as part of a Democratic-sponsored signature initiative related to revenues or make changes legislatively is one of several "open questions" remaining as they work to put together a package.

"We're going to do things that are strong but that are done by majority vote," he said.

It's not like the state went on a spending spree in 2010-11, but now that we've started the new fiscal year we're curious what the 2011-12 budget means for state workers.

How does the austerity translate in the offices, prisons and state hospitals and on patrols around California? What is it doing to workloads and morale? Have labor contracts reached in the last year set a floor and given a measure of security that offsets some of this year's budgetary stress?

Take our poll and leave your comments.

Attorney General Kamala Harris said Wednesday that a $71 million cut to the Division of Law Enforcement budget will "handcuff the state Department of Justice's ability to fight gang violence and disrupt the flow of drugs, guns and human beings across our border."

Harris' press release outlined dire consequences that include several hundred law enforcement positions cut and criminal prosecutions hampered. The AG called on lawmakers to restore the money.

Meanwhile, union leadership sought to reassure members that they were fighting the cuts. Al Cardwood, president of the Association of Special Agents-DOJ, sent a letter to members on Wednesday that included this paragraph:

I will tell you that AG Kamala Harris, Director Wallace and Deputy Director Lopes worked until late last night making telephone calls when the news hit the airwaves. Also, CSLEA President Alan Barcelona and CSLEA lobbyist Coby Pizzotti have been in constant contact with me during these latest developments and are working on our behalf.

Earlier, Barcelona signed this budget opposition letter and fired it off to legislators:
CSLEA letter opposing cuts to DOJ budget

Gov. Jerry Brown avoided getting into many details about the budget that he and Democrats have agreed on, but a few newsy nuggets of interest to state workers did surface during his 15-minute press conference with reporters a few minutes ago.

For a broader look at Brown's comments on the budget and those of Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, click here to pick up Torey Van Oot's report on Capitol Alert.

The deal includes no taxes, since among Republicans "there is an almost religious reluctance" to avoid them, Brown said.

The governor was ready to wheel and deal on public pensions, but even that couldn't pull up the GOP's political anti-tax anchor. "I have to say, the pension proposals ... my office had the language written," Brown told reporters. "That's all now tabled."

The Democrats plan to pass a budget that makes another $150 million in cuts to each of the state's university systems and more cuts to the judiciary. (Brown hinted the the state's massive courthouse building project would be put on hold.)

The universities could see yet another $100 million in cuts triggered if state revenues don't meet higher estimates in the new budget plan.

Brown also nixed selling state properties and then leasing them back, a holdover idea from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration that Brown rejected and then said he'd reconsider.

Several elected state workers (A.K.A. legislators) aren't happy about Controller John Chiang's decision to cut off their pay and per diem for failing to submit a balanced budget by June 15 (see this Capitol Alert roundup of lawmakers' quotes for the range of reaction).

This blog is interested in what state employees think about the matter. Is this a delicious comeuppance for a group that hasn't felt budget impasse consequences before? Or is Chiang's decision really working against the interests of state employees?

David Kieffer, executive director of SEIU California told The Bee not long ago that if lawmakers didn't make taxes part of a solution to the state's $9.6 billion shortfall, he thought Brown and the Democrats should go back to budget gimmicks.

"Arnold (Schwarzenegger) didn't do every gimmick. ... There's a bottomless pit of gimmicks," Kieffer said.

From that perspective, Chiang's action unjustly punishes lawmakers and could lead to deeper cuts that wind up costing government jobs or lend momentum to more public pension rollbacks that Republicans want.

So how do you see it? We're considering writing our Thursday column about what state workers think. We'd love to hear from you. Take our poll, make your comments below and e-mail your thoughts to jortiz@sacbee.com and include your name and a contact phone if you'd like to be part of the column. We're all ears.

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 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 looked at what Gov. Jerry Brown's revised budget cuts mean for state employees, and Sacramento in particular. As we were casting our net for information on Monday, we asked Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer for a breakdown of the roughly 5,500 jobs that would go away under the proposal.

Here's what he sent our way:

Gov. Jerry Brown's wants to eliminate 43 boards, commissions, offices and task forces while cutting some 5,500 positions from state government, he said during this morning's press conference to announce his May state budget revision.

The "bulk" of employee cuts would be in Corrections, Finance Director Ana Matosantos said in remarks after Brown presented his budget. She didn't specify how many positions would be axed there or in other departments.

If the restructuring took effect Jan.1, 2012, the consolidations would save the state $82.7 million, about half of that from the general fund. Click here to download the section of the budget that contains a list of state entities that Brown wants to ax.

Some other cuts of particular interest to state employees:

Gov. Jerry Brown plans to close 70 state parks and historic sites, but the impact shouldn't cost current permanent employees their jobs, according to the the union that represents park rangers and California's parks director -- assuming the state gets the tax revenues Brown wants.

The California Statewide Law Enforcement Association said that its representatives talked with the Department of Parks and Recreation about the shutdowns in March.

"At that time, DPR represented that no layoffs of full-time bargaining unit members were contemplated. However, if the tax extension sought by the Governor was not obtained and more drastic cuts were implemented, layoffs would be likely," the union said on its website.

California State Parks Director Ruth Coleman said the department is expected to lose about 200 permanent positions, though most of those will come from eliminating some of the department's roughly 500 vacant posts.

"We're going to have to eliminate those positions and then move people around," Coleman said last week to Capitol Bureau reporter Torey Van Oot. "The layoff process will be initiated... but whether or not people at the end of the day will be unemployed, we're hoping not. We hope that we can save all of our permanent staff."

The state's layoff program allows senior employees whose positions are eliminated to displace junior colleagues in similar jobs, so it's likely that some park staff will have to move to continue working for the government.

"That can be very destructive to a lot of people because it's hard to move across the state if you have a spouse with a different job or things like that," Coleman said, "so I don't want to understate the challenge this is going to pose to our staff and the difficulty they are going to experience."

PHOTO: The California Governor's mansion, one of 70 state parks and historic sites slated for closure by Gov. Jerry Brown. Sacramento Bee file / Jose Luis Villegas

Assembly Republicans have rolled out their own budget proposal, which, according to this report by Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Kevin Yamamura, includes a 10 percent cut to the state's employee costs:

Several of the GOP ideas would be highly contentious. It is hard to see how Democrats would slash state worker compensation by anything close to 10 percent after employees agreed to some concessions in new contracts within the last year. Assembly Republicans did not outline specific cuts but suggested the state could pursue layoffs or ramp up health care costs.

The story, posted on Capitol Alert, includes a link to the GOP proposal.

The Bee's Kevin Yamamura will host a live chat from 11 a.m. to noon today to discuss the status of state budget talks. You can join him here.

Speaking of chats, remember that we've scheduled, "Pensions, politics and public employees," for Thursday from noon to 1 p.m.. It will run live on The State Worker blog and at www.sacbee.com/live.

If you can't join Kevin's chat or ours when they run live, you can check out the replays a little later at those same locations. Never participated in a chat? Here's one that ran Mar. 17.

Brown's Countdown, Day 76: Budget talks deteriorate as GOP unveils big request list
State budget talks between Gov. Jerry Brown and Republican lawmakers deteriorated Friday as Republicans released a long list of proposals to overhaul California government that Democrats said had further divided the parties.

According to a document Senate Republicans provided to reporters, they asked Brown for pension cuts to current and future employees, as well as changes to teacher tenure that reward performance and a hard cap on future state spending, among dozens of ideas.

... The list provided by Republicans included notations of where Brown and Democratic leaders had agreed and disagreed, a rare unveiling that serves as a bad sign for negotiations. (Click here to see the GOP list provided to reporters.)

According to GOP notes, Brown is willing to accept a $106,000 per year cap on final pension amounts and impose new restrictions intended to block workers from spiking their payouts. But he rejected increases in cost-sharing, as well as any move toward a 401(k) style plan, for current employees. He was, however, open to creating a hybrid option for future workers.

Redistricting called cause of state budget impasse
It might sound crazy, but some political insiders think the budget impasse has less to do with anti-tax conservatives than redistricting. "Huh?" you say - well, here's how.

Bee Capitol Bureau colleague and state budget brainiac Kevin Yamamura is one of nearly a dozen journalists, lawmakers and interest group representatives scheduled to chat about the state's fiscal struggles on Capital Public Radio at 10 a.m. today.

Clicking here will get you to Fixing California's Budget: Brown's Countdown and Beyond, moderated by Insight host Jeffrey Callison. The panel discussion is a product of cooperative budget coverage this year between The Bee and Capital Public Radio.

We expect the hour-long chat will veer into topics of keen interest to State Worker blog users, such as public employees' pay and pensions.

The show also will air live on Capital Public Radio's four news & information stations in Northern California: KXJZ (90.9 FM) in Sacramento, KKTO (90.5 FM) in Lake Tahoe and Reno, KUOP (91.3 FM) in Stockton and Modesto and KQNC (88.1 FM) in Quincy, and it will be distributed to more than 50 public radio stations in California on Capital Public Radio's statewide news network.

If you miss this morning's live discussion, you can catch the rebroadcast from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. today.

As of Tuesday night, Kevin was scheduled to appear with ...

Half of U.S. state governments overestimated their revenues by at least 10 percent in 2009, according to a new report by the Pew Center for the States, with serious consequences to budgets because the projections shape spending, cutting and tax policy priorities.

"States' Revenue Estimating: Cracks in the Crystal Ball," looks at what states estimated they would take in income taxes, sales taxes and corporate taxes from 1987 to 2009 and found that

• Errors in revenue estimates have worsened progressively during the fiscal crises that have followed the past three economic downturns. Between 1990 and 1992, a quarter of the states had errors of 5 percent or more. In 2001 and 2003, nearly half the states were off by 5 percent or more. In 2009, almost three in four states missed the mark by 5 percent or more.
• 2009, the first full fiscal year of the Great Recession, ended with the largest overestimates in revenue forecasting of any year studied. This translated to a roughly $50 billion shortfall that states had to cover.
• Unique among past downturns, the Great Recession was also notable for major declines in all three major state taxes, which comprise 72 percent of states' total tax revenues.

Here's the report:
States' Revenue Estimating: Cracks in the Crystal Ball

Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed $27.6 billion in solutions to erase California's budget deficit through June 30, 2012 and provide a $1 billion reserve. These include program cuts, extended tax increases and shifting greater responsibilities to local governments.

Now you can try your hand at shaping California's fiscal future with The Bee's state budget balancer. Bee Capitol Bureau Chief Dan Smith updated the tool this week to include a few more options, such as more detailed choices on how to deal with schools.

We're planning to highlight what people on the front lines of government, state workers, think should be done. So check out the budget balancer tool by clicking here and then send your pithy, concise budget comments to politics@sacbee.com. Then watch for a roundup of budget balancing ideas in an upcoming Thursday State Worker column.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg was at the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce this morning to unveil legislation on regulatory reform and -- as a news release from his office put it -- make government more "nimble and responsive" to the demands of economic development in the state.

While he was there, a reporter asked about the freeze on state hiring that Gov. Jerry Brown announced yesterday.

"I think he wants to make it crystal clear that government is not going to grow," Steinberg said in part. "It can't grow. We are dealing with big deficits here."

Watch Bee colleague Hector Amezcua's video of Steinberg's full response below.

In today's Bee, Kevin Yamamura writes about the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office's latest take on California's public pension system: It seems unsustainable.

Jason Sisney, director of state finance for the Analyst's Office, appeared in a 14-minute video Thursday outlining ways lawmakers could reduce pensions for future employees throughout the public sector, including the University of California system, teachers and county government workers.

"Can the substantial disparity between public and private sector retirement benefits be sustained much longer?" Sisney asks in the video. "We think that it probably cannot."

Watch the analyst's video report below:

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

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees says that California should find new "revenue opportunities" and could save more than $34 billion per year by dumping private contractors who do jobs that government employees could do for less.

"That's the amount that Sacramento spends every year paying private contractors to do jobs that civil servants can perform for roughly half the cost," says AFSCME's press release, which was issued this morning.

AFSCME says it culled those ideas and others from surveying the 180,000 workers it represents in various levels of California government. The union now wants to form "workplace-level, labor-management efficiency teams" to find and capture ways for government to save money.

Besides raising revenues and curtailing outside contracts, AFSCME says government should do more of the following:

Gov. Jerry Brown has canceled the sale-lease back of state buildings. Follow sister blog Capitol Alert for details as they emerge.

"The sale of the buildings really didn't make much sense," he said. Brown proposed more internal borrowing, using Medi-Cal funds and Assembly Bill 900 funds for prisons to plug the $1.2 billion budget hole created by canceling the sale.

This item first posted on Jan. 31, but we're bringing it back so that State Worker blog users can see the results now that item has been pushed off the home page.

Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered the state's vehicle fleet slashed and new vehicle purchases stopped. The mandate followed an earlier edict that government agencies and departments cut the number of cell phones issued to state workers.

(By the way, here's a perspective on Brown's phone recall by John Thomas Flynn of TechLeader.TV: "Jerry Brown, Cell Phones and the Law of Unintended Consequences.")

We're always interested in gauging what this blog's users think about these sorts of policies. Hence today's poll question:

The Legislature should consider cutting state workers' pay, according to a new, grim review of what Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan means for California's civil servants.

The Legislative Analyst's Office notes that Brown says departments won't make about one-third of the cuts required in the 2010-11 general fund budget. Furthermore, the LAO says, Brown's budget plan for 2011-12 contains several suspect assumptions about employee cost savings.

Let's hit this point by point:

After his State of the State speech Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown took media questions. Bee colleague and Capitol Alert blogger Torey Van Oot passed along her notes from the scrum about what the governor said when asked whether he would make more "symbolic" cuts, like his cell phone recall or state vehicle executive order.

"I think streamlining the state is more than symbolic," Brown said. "There are agencies that can be merged and layers that can be eliminated and I'm working on that."

When will Brown detail those mergers and consolidations? If recent history serves, he'll do it when it gives him maximum political impact.

One of Brown's political strengths is his sense of timing. When he ran for governor last year, he defied calls within his own party to fire back early at Republican Meg Whitman's multimillion-dollar negative ad campaign. His eventual win was a political tortoise-and-the-hare story (with help from Whitman's "nannygate" debacle). Brown knew that in politics the finish is more important than the start.

Now he's up against Reeps who are insisting early on that Brown's tax extension plan is a no go. Dems aren't happy with his planned cuts.

But rather than getting bogged down in a word war (remember Schwarzenegger's famous "girlie man" remark?), Brown going back to his tortoise strategy. So look for more cost-cutting announcements to trickle out of the administration over the coming weeks as the governor seeks to burnish his cost-cutter credentials -- and pressure members of his own party and Republicans on the other side to leave their comfort zones.

The state Department of Finance has issued the rules and forms for departments to inventory and turn in cell phones in keeping with Gov. Jerry Brown's Jan. 11 executive order to slash state-issued cell phones by 50 percent.

We've embedded the budget letter below. Click the following links for the detailed instructions and forms that departments are supposed to use to carry out Brown's order.

Cellular Device Inventory Reduction Instructions
Cellular Device Inventory Reduction Worksheet
Request for Cellular Device Exemption
Budget Letter 11 02: Cellular Phone Reductions

As reported less than an hour ago on The Bee's Capitol Alert blog, Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered the state's vehicle fleet reduced and has placed a moratorium on new state vehicle purchases. Click here to read the order.

Gov. Jerry Brown has just issued an order to reduce the state vehicle fleet and to stop purchasing new cars. Bee colleague David Siders has more on our sister blog, Capitol Alert.

A new policy brief from the Legislative Analyst's Office puts meat on the bones of Gov. Jerry Brown's broad-stroke 2011-12 budget plan to cut a total of 7 percent of state funding to California's court system, a decrease of $272 million.

Among the LAO's suggestions to cut costs (listed in the table above): transition to electronic court reporting, allow private firms to bid for court security services and use more contract court interpreters.

Here's the eight-page policy brief:

The discussion is heating up over whether Congress should enact laws allowing states to declare bankruptcy -- and thus sidestep existing pension obligations. Commentaries and a radio broadcast devoted to the topic are sprinkled into this morning's roundup of news and views of interest to State Worker blog users:

Brown's Countdown, Day 13: Steinberg says Dems will back governor's budget-cutting goal
California Senate Democrats will back Gov. Jerry Brown's goal of chopping $12.5 billion out of the state budget as part of a deal in which voters get a crack at a tax-hike extension measure in June, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told The Bee in an an interview Friday.

ISU research: State employees with degrees make less than private sector workers
Iowans who hold college degrees earn substantially more money if they work for private businesses instead of state government, according to Iowa State University research.

Bondholders, Unions In High-Stakes Battle Over State Bankruptcy
The oddly passive headline on the New York Times Page One story today ("A Path Is Sought For States To Escape Their Debt Burdens") obscures a very active behind-the-scenes battle in Washington.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg is holding a state budget town hall today from 10 a.m. to noon at Sacramento's Belle Cooledge Library, 5600 South Land Park Drive. The California Channel plans to stream the event live on the Internet. Click here to open CalChannel's webcast page.

PHOTO: Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, speaks to The Bee's Capitol Bureau on Friday.
CREDIT: Hector Amezcua / Sacramento Bee

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.

Our story in today's Bee looks at what Gov. Jerry Brown's budget says -- and doesn't say -- about the size of the state work force next year.

Here's information from his state budget proposal that lays out the number of workers the state will employ in 2011-12, translated into "personnel years," and what it will cost to compensate them. (Click on the table to see a larger version.)

You'll find the data above on PDF page 194 in Brown's budget 266-page budget summary, which you can download here. The numbers in the executive section of the table represent employees under gubernatorial authority. The figures include State Fund, CalPERS, CalSTRS and a few other quasi-autonomous groups, but you get the idea.

IMAGE: www.freeclipart.com

Our Thursday State Worker column in the fiber and cyber Bee looked at the range of state workers' reaction to Gov. Jerry Brown's order to cut the number of state cell phones by at least half.

This post is the third of three that publishes the state workers' e-mails and interviews behind the column. Click here for the first post and click here for part 2.

I do not have a State phone so I have no personal iron in this fire ...

This seems a terribly silly way to try to squeeze a couple of dollars out of the budget.

Taken to the extreme - we could eliminate all of those expensive computers that the State Employees use on the job ... go back to carbon paper and typewriters.

ALSO ... if one assumes that half of the eliminated cell phones are still under Contract .... Will that mean the State will have to pay Early Termination fees ???

24,000 phones times $175 = about $ 4.2 million.

I believe it is a silly and ill advised means of economizing ....

Sadly ... I think Jerry is showing his age on this one.

Gov. Jerry Brown has started with a cell phone crackdown and has promised to go after state cars and to examine whether the state has misclassified some state workers as peace officers.

So what other drawers need to be pulled open in the state closet to start cleaning up clutter that is needlessly costing big government bucks? Leave your comments below. We're not talking about whether pensions need cutting, or whether pay should be pared back. That stuff is endlessly debated. We're talking about those "little" things that, when added together, can save millions -- like cell phones.

PHOTO: www.freefoto.com

With just 400 to 450 words for our Thursday State Worker column, 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.

Gov. Jerry Brown's order Tuesday to cut in half the number of state-issued cell phones has been a big topic of conversation among state workers this week. On Wednesday we solicited e-mails and from state workers and followed them with phone calls. We also talked with employees outside the Capitol about Brown's crackdown. All that correspondence and conversation produced today's State Worker column in The Bee.

Here are some of the comments and e-mails from state workers. We're planning to post more later today and on Friday.

Jon,

This is a good starting point for the new governor. Lets get rid of the cell phones. But in one of our meetings (an executive) already told us that he is asking his legal office to review the Executive Order and find the language to get around it ... He wants the language he needs to use in the justification to keep the cell phones. I can tell you that in most offices we could get rid of 70% of our phones without jeopardizing the work we do and without jeopardizing staff safety. But once again the deputy directors that are here from the last administration are going on the offensive to keep everything they have. These appointees are traveling from Sacramento to Southern CA like it's running out of style.

The question is will the governor consolidate, eliminate and tackle the big ticket items like, boards, commissions, and departments. This governor just like the last governor ONLY has one chance. If he goes in June asking us for tax increase (or to keep them the same) without making any changes to the boards, commissions, and departments his initiative WILL FAIL. The voters in CA are very smart and the Governor should do everything possible before he goes to the voters. That includes eliminating 70% of the boards and commissions, all agency departments etc....

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:

Here's our morning round up of news and views of interest to State Worker blog users.

Brown's Countdown, Day 2: Governor looking for three-sided trick shot on budget
Gov. Jerry Brown proposed a delicate trick shot Monday to balance California's budget: Persuade Democrats to slash social services, ask Republicans to place taxes on the ballot, then persuade voters to pay additional money for five more years.

State workers unhappy with Brown's budget plan (video above)
A lot of people are upset about Gov. Jerry Brown's plans to cut spending and raise revenue, especially tens of thousands of state workers.

State of the unions
The Great Depression invigorated the modern American labor movement. The Great Recession has crippled it.

We noted earlier today that Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan allows for a $395 million "augmentation" for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The money would go to pay correctional officers' salaries, inmate medical transportation costs and a few other things.

But does that mean Brown is assuming a contract with full hours and pay for correctional officers? Is the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, one of six unions without a contract, going to escape a pay cut?

We're still combing through the budget for items of interest to state workers, but some of the best observations are coming from folks like Blog User S, who notes that private prison expenditures fall by 45 percent next year under Brown's budget.

This year's California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget assumes $410 million paid to private firms for housing California inmates. Next year the expenditure would drop to $224 million.

Out-of-state private prison costs, the most expensive line item in the CDCR contracted facilities budget, would go from $272 million in the current year to $148 million in 2011-12.

Click here to see details of the CDCR budget.

PHOTO: www.freefoto.com

Torey Van Oot, who runs the Capitol Alert blog, is rounding up reaction to Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan. She's adding remarks as they come in. Click here to see what the movers and shakers in labor, business and politics are saying.

Two time-honored symbols of state excess, cell phones and vehicles, are targeted in the budget proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown this morning.

From page 7 of the introduction to the governor's 2011-12 budget (click here to open it):

Two areas of particular scrutiny will be the use of cell phones by state employees and the number of state vehicles. The state currently pays for about 96,000 cell phones, one for over 40 percent of all state employees. The Governor has set a statewide goal of reducing the number of cell phones by at least 50 percent. In addition, the Administration will reduce the number of vehicles the state maintains. There are approximately 13,600 light duty vehicles (cars, pickups, vans) in the state fleet, not including some 12,000 that are used for public safety. To reduce the number of vehicles in the state's fleet, the Administration will require each vehicle's purpose and necessity to be rejustified. Only vehicles necessary for critical state functions will be retained, and only when retaining such vehicles is cost effective.

The same introduction mentions cuts previously announced, including eliminating the Office of the Secretary of Education, cutting the Inspector General for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and trimming the governor's office budget by 25 percent.

Gov. Jerry Brown said this morning that he wants state employees in unions without contracts to accept $308 million in concessions as part of a wide-ranging downshift in state spending. He also wants to add a lower health insurance option for state workers and retirees.

The cuts would be bargained to cover 63,000 state workers represented by California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment; California Correctional Peace Officers Association; California Statewide Law Enforcement Association; Professional Engineers in California Government; California Association of Professional Scientists; and International Union of Operating Engineers.

"This will all be done through collective bargaining and I'm sure there will be resistance. But that's what collective bargaining is for," Brown said.

Brown's budget proposal adds a "core health care option" that saves $72 million by providing "fundamental coverage at a lower premium," according to the 2011-12 budget summary of employee compensation and retirement.

The state faces at least a $25 billion deficit over the next 18 months. Along with cuts to employee compensation, Brown is proposing slashing college budgets, welfare and other services. He also proposed shifting many of the policies and services that the state now handles, such as juvenile justice and short-term inmate incarceration, to local governments.

It's not clear what the long-term impact would be to the size of state government or the number of state workers. To ease the transition, the governor wants the Legislature to put up a ballot measure to extend taxes or another five years set to expire this year. If the measure fails, he said, the impact to the budget is fairly simple to estimate.

"Look through those different slides" he said pointing to a monitor that detailed $12.5 billion in cuts across the government spectrum, "and multiply by two."

Brown demurred when asked about budget specifics if voters reject the tax extension: "Some people would say I'm putting a gun to their head, so I'm not going to do that."

In a few minutes, Gov. Jerry Brown will release details of his budget plan to close a current $6 billion budget gap and a $19 billion or so shortfall projected for 2011-12. The lead of his office press release highlights state workers:

Governor Jerry Brown will release a balanced state budget today that slashes spending by $12.5 billion, including an eight to 10 percent cut in take-home pay for most state employees, and proposes a "vast and historic" restructuring of government operations.

Sacbee.com will have live coverage, chats and reaction throughout the day. Click here for more info.

Our sister blog, Capitol Alert, has a summary of a new study that looks at the budget problems in California and three other Western states. It concludes that California suffers more from a spending problem than a revenue problem, but the Golden State's problems aren't as severe as what Arizona faces.

A couple of points we noticed in the report by Brookings Mountain West and the Morrison Institute of Public Policy: The authors explain how much of the problem is tied to the way states do their business (structural deficits) and how much is economic circumstance (cyclical deficits). Also, the study doesn't specifically lay blame for state's budget problems on pension obligations.

Click here for the Capitol Alert post, which contains a link to the study.

A state appeals court should reverse a lower court's ruling that state workers in "special fund" departments were illegally furloughed, an attorney for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger argues in documents filed this week in San Francisco.

Attorney David Tyra contends in two mirror-image briefs submitted to the 1st District Court of Appeal that last month's furlough decision by the California Supreme Court "fully disposes of the issues" raised in SEIU Local 1000 v. Schwarzenegger et al. and UAPD v. Schwarzenegger et al..

Nearly a year ago, Alameda Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch ruled in both cases that furloughing employees in departments funded entirely or in part with money outside the general fund was an "arbitrary, capricious and unlawful" act. He then ordered those workers returned to full hours and pay. Schwarzenegger immediately appealed, which kept furloughs in place.

Then the state Supreme Court ruled on Oct. 4 that the Legislature had tacitly approved Schwarzenegger's furloughs, which made the policy legal. On Oct. 7, the 1st District Court issued a letter to both state and union attorneys about the SEIU and UAPD cases:

Dear Counsel: As you are undoubtedly aware, on October 4 the Supreme Court filed its opinion in Professional Engineers in California Government v. Schwarzenegger, S183411. Should you conclude that the opinion does not resolve all issues in this appeal, the Court has directed me to inform you that additional briefing addressing the impact of the Supreme Court's decision may be submitted according to the following schedule. Appellants may file an initial supplemental brief no later than November 8, 2010. Respondent may file its brief on or before November 19, 2010. Appellants may file a reply brief no later than November 30, 2010.

That same day, the appellate court set a briefing schedule for California Correctional Peace Officers Association v. Schwarzenegger, another Roesch furlough ruling appealed by the governor. Click here for our recent post about that appeal.

The 1st District Court hasn't yet set a date for oral arguments in any of the cases.

What follows is Tyra's 10-page SEIU brief , which essentially says that applying the guidelines set down by the Supreme Court's ruling undercuts the Roesch decisions. (This link opens a virtually identical Tyra brief addressing the UAPD case.)

Plaintiff's brief in SEIU Local 1000 v.Schwarzenegger

We've plucked this from our daily mountain of e-mail. Despite the times, some state workers still have a sense of humor.

We have received hundreds of e-mails from state employees, academics and other reporters asking questions about the interplay between the new state budget and the SEIU Local 1000 tentative agreement. Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions:

As the dust settles from last week's Supreme Court furlough decision, the SEIU Local 1000 tentative agreement and the 2010-11 budget legislation, the impact of the interwoven events is becoming more clear.

In this post we'll share some answers to questions about what this means to state workers whose unions don't have a contract.

California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment says that the 2010-11 budget authorized by the Legislature may actually give Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger more authority over state workers.

Here's a paragraph from the union's Oct. 8 e-mail:

Many members have asked how the current furloughs can continue in light of the Supreme Court's ruling. The short answer is simply that the Governor concluded that because the opinion is not final for 30 days, he did not have to abide by it. The practical reality is that he was counting on the Legislature authorizing the furloughs again in this budget, just as the Supreme Court found they had done in earlier budgets. An early draft of the budget control language contained language that was very similar to the language relied upon by the Supreme Court in deciding that the Legislature had authorized furloughs, and may in fact grant broader authority to the Governor than the original language. Once the final version is in print, the CASE Board and legal team will analyze the budget control language to determine what options may be available.

The final version is in print. You can read SB 870 here. The section that applies to state employee cost cuts is in Section 3.91(a) on page 755. The language didn't change from the draft we posted here last week.

The CASE e-mail goes into some detail about the budget drama's final hours and how the employee contracts, pension reform legislation and the budget talks interlocked. Click here to view the CASE memo.

From the Notebook blog posts give you the notes, quotes and details that don't get into our state worker news stories but that inform the writing nonetheless.

Our Sunday story on changes made to state employee pensions in 2010-11 budget legislation included a quote from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's at his Friday morning press conference.

You can hear what else the governor said about pensions and the budget by clicking here. Schwarzenegger starts talking about pensions at around the 3-minute mark. (Note: Listening to the 21-minute recording requires an MP3 file player.)

Photo: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, talks to the press after lawmakers approved the budget at the Capitol Friday morning. Sacramento Bee / Hector Amezcua

With some help, we've waded through the 800-page budget bill and found the language that lays out the $1.5 billion in employee compensation cuts that GOP and Democratic leaders in the Legislature are putting up for a vote. (Click here for one version of the measure, Assembly Bill 1630.)

Here's the key language. Note that lawmakers changes are in strike through and italics.

* As we noted in our web chat this morning, the Schwarzenegger administration hasn't called off the "Furlough Friday" scheduled for this week, despite Monday's ruling by the California Supreme Court that furloughs have to be approved by the Legislature.

Here's what an e-mail from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's spokesman Aaron McLear said: "The (Supreme Court's) order does not go into effect for 30 days so it does not affect Friday's (scheduled) furlough day."

That could change, however. Lawmakers could pass a budget between now and Friday that doesn't include anticipated savings from an Oct. 8 furlough day.

* Or it might. According to this report in today's Bee by Capitol Bureau colleague Kevin Yamamura, the budget deal under consideration includes roughly $900 million in cuts to employee compensation.

We've also heard, contrary to what we said during today's chat, that Schwarzenegger is prepared to sign a new budget within a day of the Legislature passing it. (It usually takes about a week for a bill to reach the governor's desk after passage.) If the Legislature passes a budget Thursday as currently planned, the governor could sign it Friday.

* Several chat users asked whether Columbus Day -- which is observed on Oct. 11 this year -- is a paid day off for state workers, given the recent ruling in Sacramento Superior Court that forcing employees in some bargaining units to work that day and Lincoln's Birthday violated their contracts.

As we noted during the chat, next Monday is a regular workday because the court's order doesn't take effect for 60 days. The administration could have decided to recognize the holiday, union attorney Gerald James told The State Worker, but it didn't. The Department of Personnel Administration addresses the issue on its website, which you can access by clicking here.

The Bee's Kevin Yamamura is reporting that lawmakers have a "handshake deal" on a budget. Click here for the breaking news.

The Bee's graphics and multimedia staff have worked up an interactive chronology of the state's budget mess going back to 2008. We highly recommend it as a quick way to review the ins and outs of California's fiscal disarray and various points at which state workers have been pulled into the crisis.

Click here to see it.

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.

Our Labor Day story, a sort of "state of the state workers" piece, started at roughly twice the length of the finished product running in today's fiber/cyber Bee.

Among the details that didn't make the cut, an answer to a question we asked state Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer: How many vacant state positions have been "swept" off the books? His e-mailed response:

From 2004-05 through 2009-10, 8,104 positions were eliminated pursuant to Government Code 12439. Positions eliminated in 2004-05 represent positions vacant for at least six months as of June 30, 2004 (that were not reestablished). Those positions represent the first positions eliminated pursuant to GC 12439 under Governor Schwarzenegger.

Approximately 3,350 additional positions were eliminated as a result of other vacancy reduction drills in 2008-09.

Click here to read Government Code 12439.

As The Bee's Kevin Yamamura reports in this exclusive story, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has quietly approached CalPERS about a $2 billion loan from the fund to help close the state's $19 billion budget gap.

Good idea? Bad idea? Take our poll.

The Bee is looking for state workers to voice their opinions on this topic for a follow-up story for tomorrow. If you're interested, contact The State Worker by 4 p.m. today via e-mail with your name, phone number and a few pithy sentences about what you think. We're eager to talk to you.

Colleague Kevin Yamamura covers the state budget for The Bee, and has posted an analysis of the implications for state workers in the Democrats' proposal. Check it out at Capitol Alert.

Today's State Worker column takes a ground-level look at the budget impasse, and how it appeared for a while that it would literally take an act of the Legislature to get a broken employee entry door lock fixed at the Inglewood office of UIB's Southwest Primary Adjudication Center.

A state worker prompted us to write the column after faxing along two e-mails to staff from Ron Myracks, who comes through in his memos as a concerned mid-level manager caught by forces beyond his control.

Here are Myrack's July 22 and July 23 e-mails to staff about the lock, which we understand was being repaired late Wednesday afternoon:

We've been calling the state constitutional officers to see if any plan to furlough their employees next month in keeping with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's new executive order. All have refused earlier furlough orders, citing what they believe is their constitutional independence to control their own employees.

In response to our query, Department of Education information officer Tina Jung sent over a recent e-mail to all staff from Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction:

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.

As we've just reported, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued a new executive order that requires state employees take three furlough days per month until lawmakers enact a 2010-11 budget.

The order exempts the following departments:

California Highway Patrol
California Department of Fire and Forestry Protection (CalFIRE)
Franchise Tax Board
Board of Equalization
Employment Development Department
State Compensation Insurance Fund
California Housing Finance Authority
California Earthquake Authority

It also excludes Bargaining Units 12, 16, 18 and 19, which along with unions representing CHP officers and state firefighters, recently reached tentative agreements with Schwarzenegger.

Click here to read the executive order.

VIDEO CREDIT: Dino Gomez, a California state worker with the Department of General Services, reacts to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's order to start three days of furloughs a month starting Sunday. Video by Hector Amezcua/ hamezcua@sacee.com

Assembly Republican Leader Martin Garrick said this afternoon that recent agreements between six unions and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are 'headed in the right direction," but he stopped short of saying the Republicans were already on board with the deals.

We talked briefly with Garrick this afternoon, not long after the Assembly Republican Caucus took aim at California's bureaucracy in a press release titled, "It Takes 25 California Private Sector Jobs to Support One State Employee Job."

The release, citing various state government sources for it's statistics, juxtaposes California state and private jobs numbers. Example: California has lost nearly 1.3 million jobs since 2005; state government has added 38,100 jobs during the same period.

Aside from the usual debate that arises whenever you look at these kinds of numbers, we wondered: What does this say about where Garrick and the Assembly GOP stands on the six tentative agreements?

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Assembly has an online chart that details the dates of when lawmakers passed state budgets and governors signed them going all the way back to 1968.

Click here to view the table.

Thanks to blog user L for shooting this interesting link our way.

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 recent e-mail from blog user D, who regularly corresponds with The State Worker and contributes to the blog behind the scenes, summed what many folks are saying as June 30 approaches:

There are four significant dates that state workers will be watching and two significant events that could happen any time:

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:

California tax collections helped states' overall revenues increase in the first quarter of this year when compared with the same period in 2009, according to preliminary data reported by the Rockefeller Institute of Government. It's the first time year-over-year revenues have been up since the third quarter of 2008.

A majority of states still saw declines. The overall growth came largely from increases in California and New York, which enacted tax increases. Take them out of the mix and total collections across the nation show a 2.2 percent decline in the first quarter of 2010. Even with those two sizeable states factored in, revenues overall were still significantly below pre-recession levels.

And early indications of revenues for April through June quarter -- and June is the end of the fiscal year for 46 states -- aren't looking so hot. April income tax collections showed a 7.6 percent year-over-year decline.

Click here to download the 8-page report.

IMAGE: www.rockinst.org

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

Although the state Supreme Court has set a pretty quick time line for both sides to file briefs in CASE v. Schwarzenegger, it looks like the matter won't go to oral arguments until September at the earliest.

The last deadline for briefs in the case is July 9, and the court doesn't hear oral arguments that month or in August. Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court works during the summer and occasionally holds "special sessions," spokeswoman Lynn Holton told The State Worker, but there was nothing in the court's order that indicated one would be called.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are confronting a $19 billion budget deficit and appear to be a long way from agreeing on how they'll close it. Could an impasse drag into September?

A study released Thursday by the UC Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education says that the governor's proposed budget would cost the state 330,000 full-time-equivalent jobs. That would hike California's unemployment rate by another 1.8 percentage points. The bulk of the losses, according to the study, would come from major health and human service programs that bring in federal matching funds.

Worth noting: The study was funded by Service Employees International Union.

We asked for a response from Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear, who noted that the center was also behind a study that similarly criticized furloughs.

"This is essentially an SEIU press release that proposes to raise taxes," McLear said.

Also worth noting: The administration hasn't provided statistics refuting either of the Berkeley studies.

Click here to read the Berkeley report.

The American Federation of State, County, and Muncipal Employees has been promoting a plan to close California's budget gap that includes:

• Phasing out the state's enterprise zone program
• Repealing tax breaks given to multinational corporations
• Ending offshore tax shelters used by multinational corporations
• Imposing an oil severance tax
• Increasing the tobacco tax
• Extending a reduced sales tax to services such as entertainment and sporting events
• Returning high-income personal tax brackets to what they were under the Reagan and Wilson administrations

The plan doesn't include any cuts.

Click here for an 11-page summary of AFSCME's budget proposals, which it says would generate $30 billion in annual revenues for the state.

Meanwhile, SEIU Local 1000 is hammering Schwarzenegger's May budget revision as a "non-starter" on the union's website. And, as Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker points out, the union accepted a contract with concessions last year only to see it twice die in the Legislature because the governor's own party refused to put up the votes.

Clearly, that episode created mistrust for the unions as they now talk to the administration about contracts, since there's some question about whether Schwarzenegger would deliver on any deals struck at the bargaining table.

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

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has issued the union's thoughts about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest budget proposals and the budget process itself:

"... completely unacceptable."
"... a cynical attempt to revive a series of discredited proposals ... "
"... another sequel in Sacramento's ongoing saga of budget apocalypse ..."

AFSCME says that the state would realize nearly $40 billion in savings and increased revenues by ending private contracting, dumping tax breaks given to multinational companies and whacking the state's enterprise zone program.

Click here to read the union's press release.

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.

Today's State Worker column in The Bee notes that CalPERS actuaries are recommending the fund's board boost the state's pension contribution by $600 million for the next fiscal year. Click here to read the actuaries' report, which lays out the rationale for the increase.

The board will take up the matter next week.

With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger set to issue a revised 2010-11 budget proposal on Friday to close a $20 billion projected shortfall, Bee colleague Kevin Yamamura writes in today's Bee that

Budget experts do not expect a substantial change in the deficit size when Schwarzenegger releases his revision. But his plan will inflict more pain because he has to replace January solutions, worth several billions of dollars, that fell short due to legislative opposition or his own rosy projections.

The federal government hasn't come through. April revenues didn't meet expectations. Various plans to raise money -- offshore oil drilling, cameras to catch red light runners at intersections, tax hikes -- have been withdrawn or rejected. Ditto for cuts to social services and prisons recommended by the Legislative Analyst's Office.

All of this will make it extremely difficult for lawmakers to reach a budget compromise by the end of June. Since it's unlikely that the state will have a budget by the July 1 start of the 2010-11 fiscal year, we want to know what you think a delay would mean for state employees.

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.

The state Department of Fair Employment and Housing last week told 22 employees in San Diego and Santa Ana that those offices will be closed in November.

The employees have the option to relocate to the department's Elk Grove headquarters, department spokeswoman Annmarie Billotti told The State Worker in a telephone interview. The shutdowns are projected to save the state about $200,000 annually.

DFEH, with a staff of about 200 employees, enforces California's civil rights laws.

The department also has moved its Los Angeles office into a smaller space. Ultimately it will have three regional offices -- Elk Grove, Oakland and Los Angeles -- with satellite operations in San Jose, Fresno and Bakersfield.

The department says it saved about $1 million this year consolidating offices in Los Angeles and Elk Grove.

"We're downsizing the space but retaining the positions," Billotti said.

The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 7-3 on Monday to approve AB 790, which would establish employee payroll as a continuous appropriation. The measure now goes to floor and could come up for a vote later this week.

We've written about the bill before, but the latest Senate analysis of the measure includes an angle on state worker pay that we've considered for weeks but until now couldn't answer:

Did last year's decision to move the June 2010 payroll costs into the 2010-11 budget year move up how soon Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could order state worker wages withheld to the federal minimum if there's a budget delay?

Click the following link for more about how last year's budget legislation could impact state worker pay.

After several departments took a beating at an Assembly Accountability & Administrative Review hearing on Feb. 10, the Department of General Services issued a memo last Thursday that requires agency secretaries, department directors or their assigned representatives certify that all purchases are "mission critical." (Click here for Andrew McIntosh's report on the policy.)

"(N)o work will be initiated, no documents will be reviewed, and no contracts will be approved without the certification," the DGS memo says.

Staff members of the committee, which is chaired by Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, found that DGS approved the following in 2009: $30 million for furniture, $43.4 million on light duty and passenger vehicles (the figure excludes emergency vehicles) and $2.3 million for conferences and outside meetings. Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Jim Sanders covered the hearing in this report.

Click here to see the video of the hearing. The meeting starts at the 14-minute mark of the 3-hour hearing. You can read the DGS memo, issued Thursday but made retroactively effective to Feb. 11 -- the day after the committee hearing -- by clicking this link.

Now it's your turn. Weigh in on our poll. And, as always, we welcome your comments.

IMAGE: Hector De La Torre / www.democrats.assembly.ca.gov

The Secretary of State's office has authorized signature collection for a November ballot initiative that would make several changes to California's budget process, including passage by a simple majority instead of the current two-thirds requirement. It would, however, retain the two-thirds vote needed to raise taxes and allow the governor to make unilateral budget cuts during a fiscal crisis if the Legislature fails to act.

Click here to read the Secretary of State's announcement and details about the initiative.

The proponents, James C. Harrison and Thomas A. Willis, are partners at Remcho, Johansen & Purcell, a firm with a long history of representing Democratic politicians and causes. They need signatures from 694,354 registered voters by July 1 for the initiative to go before voters in November.

Harrison and Willis already have permission to collect signatures for another measure that allows budget passage by a simple majority. That initiative also mandates that legislators permanently forfeit their pay and per diem for each day past June 15 that the state goes without a budget. Click here for more about that measure.

IMAGE: hasslefreeclipart.com

With just 400 to 450 words for our Thursday State Worker column, 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.

Today's column lays out why the Division of the State Architect is going to a "self-directed" furlough program for architects who review school construction plans. One thing we didn't mention in the column: The division also stopped alternative work schedules for affected employees while it presses to reduce "bin times."

If you haven't already, read the column by clicking here and then check out these links for more info:

• The Kathy Hicks memo
• California construction job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

The State Worker spoke to Bruce Blanning, executive director of Professional Engineers in California Government, which represents the 200 or so architects switching to self-directed furloughs at DSA. We asked him what he thought of the policy: "It's a pay cut," he said.

"The governor may be able to tell people to stay home and not be paid -- that's what's in the courts right now," Blanning said during a brief Wednesday afternoon telephone interview. "But the governor doesn't have the authority to tell people to come to work and not be paid."

As we mentioned in the column, the Schwarzenegger administration says self-directed furloughs are legal and necessary for the state to conduct its business. An Alameda judge ruled the the policy is illegal for state prison officers. Schwarzenegger is appealing (although CCPOA contends the that appeal is flawed). Read more about the CCPOA lawsuit by clicking here.

The Department of Developmental Services is planning to close Lanterman Developmental Center in Pomona. The department didn't announce when the 24-hour facility would go dark.

In this letter to staff on Friday, Director Terri Delgadillo said that Lanterman's operating costs are the highest per patient of its five facilities statewide. It's also "one of the oldest facilities, and its infrastructure is in need of major repairs and capital improvements, all of which would require a significant investment of state funds over the next few years," Delgadillo said in the letter.

Click the following link for more information about Lanterman and how long it might take to close it down.

The Senate Budget & Fiscal Review Committee last week heard testimony about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 5/5/5 proposal to cut state workers' pay, reduce departmental payroll costs and raise what employees contribute to their own pensions.

The hearing went about three hours (click here to view it) with government officials, union representatives, lobbyists and state workers chipping in their remarks. To get a flavor of the afternoon discussion, The State Worker asked folks at the Department of Personnel Administration and at Local 1000 to give us statements to post here.

The Department of Personnel Administration sent us this paragraph as characterizing Chief Deputy Director Julie Chapman's statement near the start of the Thursday hearing:

We've had private discussions with some unions and anticipate moving to formal negotiations soon. We've been discussing possible negotiation dates with others, and the unions are checking with their bargaining teams to see what dates work for them. We expect to be back to the table as early as next week.

Click the following link for text of Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker's remarks.

A couple of items we thought State Worker blog users would want to know about:

AB 1125, the bill that would have made funding for state worker payroll a continuous appropriation, has died in committee. It's defeat leaves open the possibility that state workers' wages could be withheld to the federal minimum if lawmakers fail to pass a budget by the June 30 end of the fiscal year.

Click here to read more about the issue. We hear the plan could pop up again soon in another bill.

Click the following link to read what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said when asked about withholding state worker pay to the federal minimum.

The Legislative Analyst's Office has released it's analysis of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's so-called 5/5/5 plan to cut state worker pay, downsize the workforce and shift a greater portion of pension costs from employers to employees. Click here to read our story. This link will open the LAO report.

From the report's summary:

This report discusses some key issues facing the Legislature in the employee compensation area of the budget. In 2009-10, the state has achieved significant savings due to the Governor's furlough program, which is being challenged in many court cases. For 2010-11, the Governor proposes various measures to reduce state personnel costs, including shifting pension contribution costs from the state to employees, unallocated reductions in personnel budgets of departments, and an across-the-board salary reduction for employees. These proposals would result in $2.5 billion in savings ($1.4 billion General Fund). We believe that employee compensation reductions are necessary due to the magnitude of the budget problem. Nevertheless, some of the administration's proposals would face legal challenges or otherwise may be difficult to implement. Consequently, we recommend that the Legislature focus efforts to reduce compensation costs on pay reduction options.

Our most recent State Worker column outlines the possibility of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger resurrecting an order to temporarily reduce state employees' pay to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour if lawmakers fail to pass a budget by the end of June. Once a deal is in place -- which would include money allocated for wages -- the state would return everyone to full pay and issue checks for the withheld wages.

A few readers have called and e-mailed asking us to mention that there are state employees who wouldn't even get minimum wage in that scenario -- doctors and attorneys.

The Federal Labor Standards Act exempts those job classifications from any minimum salary requirement, so the state would withhold the pay of 5,000 state lawyers, administrative law judges, physicians, podiatrists, dentists and others in bargaining units 2 and 16.

Another often-overlooked group: managers, supervisors and others who don't get paid for working more than 40 hours per week. Under federal law, they'd get $455 per week until a budget deal got done.

You can read more about how a delayed budget could impact paychecks by clicking here to open DPA's Web page on the topic. The page hasn't been updated since August 2008, however, so the minimum pay details aren't current.

IMAGE: hasslefreeclipart.com

The Department of Finance sent out a budget letter to departments on Friday, giving them until Monday of next week to submit plans to wring another 5 percent in salary savings for fiscal 2010-11. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger mandated the cost cuts with his Jan. 8 Executive Order S-01-10.

"These reductions can be achieved through abolishing vacancies, attrition, and layoffs," the budget letter says. Click here to read it.

Fox Business talk-show host Stuart Varney grilled Assembly Speaker Karen Bass today about California's budget crisis and pressed her about the push for more federal money, spending and pensions.

Here are some bits of the interview, which you can view by clicking the video link above, that State Worker blog users will find particularly interesting:

STUART VARNEY: When you get back to California you need to come up with a plan that somehow fixes this deficit. I will ask clearly are you in favor of any pay freeze for state employees? Are you in favor of looking at the pensions California is currently paying its former government workers? (talking over each other)

VARNEY: You have got to get at this.

SPEAKER BASS: Exactly.

VARNEY: Are you in favor of a pay freeze? Are you in favor of doing something about those lavish pensions? Are you in favor of lifting environmental rules and regulations which are killing business?

BASS: I think we have to put everything on the table. Over the last couple of years we've had a deficit totaling 60 billion dollars. ... Everything has to be on the table.

VARNEY: On the table?

BASS: That's right.

VARNEY: On the table. When we say on the table I am talking about a serious interruption of the flow of money to your pensions for state government pensions. Are you prepared to counter that? Because frankly you are in such a hole that you have to take truly drastic action over and above what you've taken already.

BASS: And let me tell you, we have absolutely taken drastic action and we are going to continue...

VARNEY: Ms. Bass, I am going to ask you a fundamental question. Are you prepared to change course? Change policy course away from much more spending and away from higher taxes and get to much lower taxes and cutting spending? Are you prepared to change direction?

BASS: We are absolutely prepared. As a matter fact, in the next couple weeks you will see we are going to roll out a comprehensive reform package stay tuned. I think you'll see big differences.

The Wall Street Journal's Bret Arends wrote a counterintuitive piece this week that puts California's financial struggles in a bit of a different context.

After acknowledging the state's budget trouble, job losses and housing market collapse, Arends argues that California bonds remain a solid investment, despite doomsday predictions in some quarters that the Golden State is on the verge of becoming a failed state:

I think fears about California's fiscal stability are greatly overdone. A lot of this commentary is really political rather than economic. When someone warns you that "California, a laboratory of liberalism, is spiraling downwards, driven by a huge budget deficit," you have to figure it's more about "San Francisco values" than Sacramento economics.

California's latest budget shortfall, $20 billion over the next 18 months, looks a lot less intimidating when compared to the $1.9 trillion state economy. So too does the size of the state's general obligation debts: Standard & Poor's says there are $64 billion in Californian general obligation bonds -- those backed by the state's tax power -- outstanding.

A bit later, Arends says,

Ultimately, of course, the health of a state government will hinge on the performance of the state economy. There, too, talk of California as a "failed state" is misleading. Yes, California has been hit hard by the latest crisis and its economic performance last year was dismal, probably worse than in many other states. But the longer-term picture is one of the success, not failure. Between 1998 and 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, California's economy grew by 25% per person in real, inflation-adjusted terms. The U.S. average: 16%.

California, in fact, did better than all but a handful of states. It did far better than the Rocky Mountain states, the Southwest, the Great Plains states, and the South. California did far better than Texas or Alaska -- during an oil boom. And California achieved this faster growth even though it started from a higher level. It has, and maintains, one of the highest standards of living in America.

After noting that "hundreds of billions of dollars" of Californians' federal taxes have subsidized less-wealthy states for decades, Arends says,

That would be enough to pay the entire Sacramento state budget for years. Failed state? They should declare independence.

Click here to read the entire WSJ piece.

The Legislative Analyst's Office has released its overview of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2010-11 budget proposal. You can download it by clicking here.

Click on the following link for some items of interest to state workers in the LAO report.

Sierra Vista Developmental Center in Yuba City will go dark on Friday. The facility has been drawing down clients and staff since the Department of Developmental Services announced the planned closure last summer, as The State Worker told you in this June report.

The facility served 50 clients and employed 51 staff represented by the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians and about 130 total.

The clients are with other facilities. CAPT says in this this press release release.doc that although some of its members have found other state jobs, "... positions are difficult to find as many state vacancies have been cut and hiring freezes are in effect."

IMAGE: Department of Developmental Services

'Tis the season to be collecting signatures.

A ballot measure that would change the two-thirds legislative vote requirement to pass a state budget to a simple majority has entered the circulation phase. Here's the official title and summary:

CHANGES LEGISLATIVE VOTE REQUIREMENT TO PASS A BUDGET FROM TWO-THIRDS TO A SIMPLE MAJORITY. RETAINS TWO-THIRDS VOTE REQUIREMENT FOR TAXES. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Changes the legislative vote requirement necessary to pass the state budget from two-thirds to a simple majority. Provides that if the Legislature fails to pass a budget bill by June 15, all members of the Legislature will permanently forfeit any reimbursement for salary and expenses for every day until the day the Legislature passes a budget bill. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Unknown changes in the content of the state budget from lowering the legislative vote requirement for passage. Fiscal impact would depend on the composition and actions of future Legislatures. Minor reduction in state costs related to compensation of legislators in years when the budget bill is passed after June 15.

The proponents, James C. Harrison and Thomas A. Willis, are partners at Remcho, Johansen & Purcell, which has long represented Democratic politicians and causes. The firm's Web site, which you can view by clicking here, says,

For over 20 years, Remcho, Johansen & Purcell has specialized in election law, campaign finance advice, public policy, and constitutional litigation. The firm has extensive litigation experience in fields ranging from education law to the initiative process. In addition, the firm has advised elected officials, candidates, organizations, and individuals involved in the political process.

The measure needs signatures from at least 694,354 registered voters to qualify it for the November 2010 ballot. The deadline for collecting the signatures is May 10.

The Secretary of State this week approved two other ballot initiatives of particular interest to state workers. Those measures, which we reported in this blog post, would change the state constitution and state law regarding public employee political funding.

SEIU Local 1000 is staging a rally this morning to protest cuts to the state's inmate rehabilitation programs. The event is planned in advance of two legislative hearings on the subject scheduled for today. Local 1000 members and their supporters will gather for about 45 minutes on the Capitol's south steps at 10 a.m., according a press advisory issued by Local 1000.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is planning to lay off more than half the 1,400 vocational instructors and teachers now working in the state's prison system. We mentioned the planned cuts in this November State Worker column.

The Select Committee for Women and Children in the Criminal Justice System will hear statements on the impact of prison education cuts from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Then at 1:30 p.m., Assembly Budget Subcommittee Number 4 will take up the matter.

Click here to read Local 1000's advisory.

The California Faculty Association has released a white paper that blasts the CSU system's leadership for "a 'restructuring' of the CSU that goes far beyond 'belt-tightening' in hard times and is, in fact, a radical change in the mission of the system."

The paper also contains an analysis of how CFA wants to frame the debate:

In addition to challenging administrators' managerial language, we must also expose the long-term social effects of the changes they propose. While it appears that each campus will have its own campus-specific plan to "transform" education, the examples being implemented right now make clear that these changes will have an especially negative impact on low-income people and communities of color and raise real questions about the civil rights implications of these actions. In fact, the provision of a broad liberal education for communities that might have no other access is at the heart of the CSU's mission and at the heart of what is under attack.

We also must understand the pattern of the assault on our public universities in a broader historical and political framework. What is happening to us in the CSU is not new, and it is not unique. As Naomi Klein chronicles in "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," crises of various sorts, from economic crises to natural disasters, have been used around the world for decades to strip down social programs, privatize government, destroy democratic institutions, and create enormous wealth for a tiny group of individuals.

Click here to download the 8-page paper.

Tomorrow morning the California Faculty Association plans to release a study of how "academic restructuring" in the California State University and University of California systems is affecting public higher education and, according to a press notice, "the political agendas that may be driving the trend."

CFA's most recent newsletter described restructuring this way:

Many campus administrators seek to save money through the elimination or "restructuring" of core academic subject areas (music, languages, physics, life sciences & multicultural studies for example) that are part of a comprehensive college education.

From today's release:

"On every one of our campuses, we are seeing signs that a profound change in the mission of our California State University is being implemented from the top under cover of the economic crisis," said CFA President Lillian Taiz, a professor of History at CSU Los Angeles.

Both the UC and CSU have raised tuition and cut class offerings. Julian Posadas, executive vice president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, said in this Sunday Viewpoints piece in The Bee, that tuition hikes and staff layoffs and furloughs are a sign that the UC system "is acting more like a private, corporate membership club than an institution dedicated to the public good."

This blog will post the CFA paper tomorrow.

Gunnar Jensen, CDCR teacher working at the Corcoran State Prison's Substance Abuse Treatment Facility, read our recent blog coverage of cuts planned for the prison system's teaching corps. He decided to write a letter to the governor and other elected officials. He sent a copy of the form letter to The State Worker and, with Jensen's permission, we're posting it here, unedited.

Jensen is speaking for himself, not his department or his fellow employees.

November 6, 2009
The Honorable

I am sending this letter to urge you to do what you can to stop the planned layoffs of nearly 800 prison teachers, statewide. By limiting educational opportunities for offenders, this act will cost far more money than it could ever save.

While there exist few longitudinal studies to support education's positive role in reducing recidivism1, we know that completing high school requirements through the General Education Development (GED) instruction and testing program has opened doors to employment for thousands of people in our state. If we truly wish to provide rehabilitation in our prisons, we must make available every opportunity for offenders to achieve this goal before paroling or returning to society after serving their sentences.

During my experience teaching in prison, I have encountered many inmates who are keenly aware of what earning a GED will mean for their future prospects of staying out of prison. Many have told me they do not want to return (to prison), and that earning their GED is the key to making that possible. Without a GED, re-violating is almost inevitable.

Please understand that academic Instructors working for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation are the "R" in CDCR. Without them, that "R" will likely come to represent "Recidivism".

Click the following link to read the rest of Jensen's e-mail.

Here's a trivia question that may not be so trivial: How many agencies or departments within California state government get zero general fund dollars and whose money can't be tapped for short-term loans to the general fund?

Answer: Five, according to the Department of Personnel Administration.

Alene Shimazu, chief of DPA's Office of Financial Management and Economic Research , came up with the answer in a declaration that's part of SEIU v. Schwarzenegger, one of four cases scheduled for a hearing Monday in Alameda Superior Court:

Click the following link for more about this distinct group of departments and agencies.

If you haven't read it already, click here for our story on the results of a new Field Poll on local and state government pensions (and click here for a graphic that outlines a few of the polls highlights). The punchline? A majority of California voters think that current retirement benefits are about right or not good enough for current employees, but they don't think new hires should get the same deal.

Other stories that we've read this morning and put into The State Worker's "Recommended Links" list:

The editorial board of the New York Daily News calls for state lawmakers to make deep budget cuts, "Lest Albany become Sacramento on the Hudson, complete with IOUs and worker furloughs." Ouch.

States are just gearing up their budget machinery, and already there's talk of employee layoffs in Maryland and Iowa ...

In reporting last Sunday's story on the Columbus Day controversy, we found out that the Schwarzenegger administration months ago formally withdrew support from the SEIU Local 1000 tentative agreement embodied in AB 88.

"... due to the decline in the State's fiscal situation during the past 6 months and the recent passage of the revised budget, the State is unable to support passage of AB 88," wrote Julie Chapman, DPA's Deputy Director of Labor Relations, in an Aug. 24 letter to Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker. "Please contact me at your earliest convenience to discuss reopening negotiations ..."

Click this link to view the entire letter.

The document reminded us of what Walker said during an interview last week, prior our discovery of the Aug. 24 letter.

The State Worker asked her about the contract and whether the union would go back to the bargaining table. After all, Republicans have twice blocked the MOU bill and it seemed almost impossible to us then (and even more so now) that Schwarzenegger would sign the deal should it reach his desk.

Walker's response: "There's a fundamental principle in negotiations: Your word has to mean something. I can't foresee being able to come to an agreement with this governor when he has already demonstrated his word can't be trusted. He's been weighed and found lacking."

IMAGE: freedigitalphotos.net / Francesco Marino

Last week we posted payroll and employee demographic data received from the State Controller's Office, and compared February and July numbers this year with the same months in 2008.

The figures gave some indication of the impact of furloughs on both the state's payroll costs and, by extension, the income tax collected from its employees.

But the information was spread across several tables and not easily manipulated, so we asked State Worker blog users to help us out by taking the data and putting it into a single table.

Thanks to J, a regular to this blog, for lending a hand and sending along this spreadsheet.

IMAGE: freeclipart.com

This in from CDCR:

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is cutting adult offender rehabilitation programs, reducing headquarters staff and creating new efficiencies to save over $280 million in response to the department's plan to achieve a $1.2 billion budget reduction. ...

Overall, program-related reductions are anticipated to eliminate more than 1,000 positions, but because of existing vacancies, the number of actual layoffs is expected to be somewhere between 600 and 900, depending upon final negotiations. ...

Over the next few months, CDCR will be working with affected labor organizations to implement these changes. Final decisions regarding new program models will be pending those negotiations.

Click here to read the department's announcement, which includes more details about its budget cuts.

The Department of General Services has its own highly capable staff of professional real estate leasing and space rental staff to assist public agencies here and statewide.

Yet even that in-house group needs help, it seems, when it comes to the Governor's plan to sell 17 buildings located on 11 government properties in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and Santa Rosa.

The plan is for the eventual buyers to lease the buildings back to the state long-term in a slew of deals designed to raise cash to help reduce the budget gap.

This week, DGS issued a call for proposals. It wants to hire a commercial real estate broker or advisory firm to help with that what will be the largest state property deals in decades.

"Though we have a lot of experienced people working for us, the sale leaseback is new territory for us. We need a broker on board with experience and expertise to help us get the most value for the state," said DGS spokesman Eric Lamoureux.

To see the request for proposals for the brokers, click here. The deadline is Oct. 30. Lamoureux said the state is hoping to have the broker on the job by January.

To see what buildings are on the block, click here for a google map and details.

With just 400 to 450 words for our Thursday State Worker column, 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.

Today we looked a bit at state correctional officer overtime through the lens of Tuesday's CDCR report by the Bureau of State Audits. (We blogged about the report when it was released. Click here for that report.)

The column in today's fiber and cyber Bee includes overtime figures for this calendar year that weren't part of the audit. As we noted, the numbers are down significantly from last year.

You can click this link to see the year-over-year January through June numbers we received from Corrections in response to our request for overtime figures. Disregard the last paragraph leading into the 2008 numbers: Department Deputy Director for Fiscal Services Dave Lewis told us in an interview on Wednesday that the drop in OT this year isn't a result of furloughs. Instead, as the column mentions, it's from policy changes that exclude leave time from counting toward the threshold for overtime and an influx of new hires through last year.

The state Board of Equalization is laying the groundwork to terminate more than a quarter of its employees with the line drawn at those with 42 months of service or less.

The board is sending out letters to about 1,100 employees asking them to confirm their service time. Meanwhile, it has sent a layoff plan to the Department of Personnel Administration. Once that's approved, State Restriction of Appointments letters will go out and the 120-day clock toward termination starts ticking. That means layoffs some time in February, assuming nothing changes between now and then.

Faced with approximately $55 million in budget cuts, the board last month asked its 4,000-plus employees to volunteer for furloughs. So far, BOE spokeswoman Anita Gore tells The State Worker, more than 1,200 people have offered to take unpaid days off.

But that will only save between $3 million and $3.5 million. Even with other cost cuts, the board is still a long way from hitting its budget target. And more cuts may be coming if state revenues don't pick up. BOE let go all of its students and retired annuitants last month. It has also frozen hiring; reduced overtime; cut travel, operating and supply expenses; reduced training expenses and cancelled or suspended non-essential contracts.

There's some uncertainty to all of this, as is usually the case when the state starts talking about whacking jobs. More people could volunteer for furloughs, which would reduce the number of terminations. The state's revenues could pick up significantly. And BOE istill doesn't know the exact size of its budget hole, since the Department of Finance hasn't given the board specific savings targets to hit.

"We're working from estimates," Gore said."But the more good news we get, the fewer the number of people we'll have to lay off."

The the political winds could change direction, too, as evidenced by today's announcement by Senate President Darrell Steinberg that he wants to reduce state worker furloughs and enact SEIU Local 1000's stalled labor contract. If that happened, thousands of SEIU-covered employees at BOE and other constitutional offices that haven't been furloughing emloyees would start taking one unpaid day off each month.

You can read more about Steinberg's plan by clicking here.

Photo credit: BOE headquarters / Sacramento Bee 2005, Jay Mather

Senate President Darrell Steinberg wants state worker furloughs pared back, he said in a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning:

In the months since the furloughs began, the evidence shows that the policy is costing the state money and further hurting the economy. It is a significant district issue for me as I represent so many state employees.

Information we have gathered indicates that California will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in our general fund at the state tax agencies alone. The current furlough policy has become a "penny saved, a dollar lost" approach that can be corrected immediately.

The State Worker reported last month in this column that Steinberg was planning to push legislation for unspecified budget cuts equal to one furlough day per month. That would allow Schwarzenegger to call off the third furlough day that started in July without a fiscal impact. From the letter:

I suggest that we pass urgency legislation to buy-out a day of furloughs with an across-the-board reduction on the state bureaucracy. This time, we ought to cut from the top down, not the bottom up.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear called The State Worker with this statement:

"Sen. Steinberg and Gov. Schwarzenegger have fundamental difference when it comes to furloughing state workers. The governor believes that they should cut back, like all California families and businesses. Sen. Steinberg thinks state workers should be shielded from economic realities that the rest of the state faces."

Steinberg also calls for the Legislature to enact AB 88, the SEIU Local 1000 contract that would pare back furloughs to just one day per month for the 95,000 workers covered by the agreement. As we noted in today's State Worker column (click here to read it), Local 1000 has launched a media campaign to pressure Schwarzenegger to publicly back the deal, since his administration negotiated it.

Click here to read Steinberg's letter to Schwarzenegger. (NOTE 1:15 P.M.: TSW posted an HTML copy of the letter with the incorrect letterhead. It has been replaced with a PDF with the correct letterhead.)

"We welcome (Steinberg's) interest and his determination to pass AB 88," said Local 1000 spokesman Jim Zamora. "We look forward to working with the governor and Republicans in the Legislature to find a way to make AB 88 work. And We agree with Sen. Steinberg's diagnosis of the problems furloughs cause."

That last line is a reference to a "preliminary findings" attachment Steinberg's office sent out with the Senator's letter. Click here to read that document.

IMAGE: Darrell Steinberg / Sacramento Bee file photo

Service Employees International Union Local 1000 has filed its fifth furlough lawsuit, this one in San Francisco Superior Court.

The complaint, which you can read by clicking here, argues from several angles that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's furlough order is illegal.

We were struck by how some of the points raised in the lawsuit have been raised by users of this blog. Among the union's arguments:

• Schwarzenegger misused his emergency declaration authority to order the furloughs: "Those powers are used arbitrarily and capricously when they undermine Legislative decision-making about political solutions to budget problems."
• The budget impasse that prompted the emergency order is over, but the furlough order remains in effect.
• The order violates the separation of powers laid out in the state constitution.
• The furlough order violates employment agreements, breaking federal and state constitution provisions "that prohibit the impairment of contracts."
• Furloughs are "wasteful mismanagement of state resources" that "achieve no substantial benefit to the general fund ..."

Local 1000 is seeking coverage of its litigation costs and "such other and further relief as the Court deems appropriate." A hearing date hasn't yet been set.

IMAGE: www.yolocourts.ca.gov

The National Conference of State Legislatures has released a new report on state budgets that shows that half of the states are projecting a cumulative shortfall of $142.6 billion for fiscal year 2010.

That's a gap the conference said will likely to "grow during the course of the fiscal year."

The conference has compiled charts that document measures, both proposed and enacted, that states are taking to close budget gaps, including furloughs and layoffs. The report -- a quick, informative but painful read -- also describes efforts to boost state revenues.

To see the conference's excellent chart, click here.

The conference is a bipartisan group that serves legislators and their staffs in the nation's states and territories, offering policy research and technical assistance.

Editor's Note: At the request of the governor's office, The State Worker has substituted a different version of the spreadsheet available via the link in this post. Modified Aug. 21, 2009.

Our Thursday State Worker column is limited by space, but visitors to this blog get extra info, Web links, notes and quotes that don't see print but still inform what we write.

Click here to download the Excel spreadshieet we reference in today's TSW fiber and cyber column.

The numbers, administration spokesman Aaron McLear told us, are "fluid" (the update is from July 7). Still, we think they give a sense of what the administration is thinking about present and future position cuts.

In case you missed it, The Bee's editorial board answers some common questions about the state's furlough policy, state worker pay and pensions. Click here to read it.

Here's an e-mail from Board of Equalization Executive Director Ramon J. Hirsig to all employees that outlines how the organization is going to deal with cuts handed to it in the last budget fix.

No, complying with the governor's thrice-monthly furloughs isn't part of the plan. But in the Q&A portion of the message, Hersig answers this question: If, at a later date, it is determined that BOE must participate in furloughs, will I be allowed to opt out of the voluntary leave program?

We confirmed the e-mail's authenticity with BOE spokeswoman Anita Gore:

From: Executive Director
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 16:23
To: +All BOE Employees
Subject: Budget Update - July 31, 2009

First, let me say that I know that what follows is a very long email. But there is a lot of important budget related information I believe you would want to know.

The California State Budget just approved by the Legislature and signed by the Governor reduces the Board of Equalization's (BOE) budget by $40 million. BOE management is looking for ways to absorb this reduction. All programs will see reductions in personnel costs, operating expenses, travel and other areas.

To read more about BOE's cost-cutting policies, click the link below.

Your department isn't allowed to buy copier toner. A state worker forwarded us this inter-agency e-mail from Rebecca Burton at the Osteopathic Medical Board:

 

"The Osteopathic Medical Board is in dire need of copier toner for our main (and only) copy machine. We have a Kyocera KM-3035 Copier. Due to the budgetary constraints, we were told by our Budget office that we cannot order more toner. We were told to see if there was any other DCA unit that could lend us the toner. If any office has a toner that we could BORROW, we will be happy to replace the toner as soon as we are allowed to make purchases again."

Embarrassed, the executive director, Angie Burton, confirmed the need.

"That wasn't supposed to get out," she said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won't use add a furlough day to partly make up for $1.1 billion in revenues rejected last week by the Assembly. Click here for Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Kevin Yamamura's report.

The Senate Republican Caucus Web site includes a list of links to budget fix bills coming up for a vote. Melanie Reagan, spokeswoman for Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth said in an e-mail this morning that the site will be updated throughout the day as as more bills come in. Click here to view the links.

Furlough news out of the California State University system has been moving at a brisk pace, and last week members of the California Faculty Association starting voting on a furlough proposal by Chancellor Charles Reed.

The online voting was supposed to end today, but according to this alert from CFA, technical difficulties have forced the union to push the deadline back to Wednesday.

But on Tuesday, the university system's board of trustees is scheduled to meet and vote on plans to cope with nearly $584 million in budget cuts. Now they won't know if faculty furloughs will be part of the equation.

Editor's Note: This story has been changed from an earlier version, which said the budget included three furlough days per month. The plan being considered does not eliminate or reduce the three furlough days per month for state workers, which a court has determined is the governor's perrgative to order as part of his emergency powers.

Our Capitol Bureau colleague, Kevin Yamamura, who is covering budget talks today. says that lawmakers from both parties have told KCRA-TV that the budget under consideration does not provide relief from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's three-furlough-days-per-month order. Click here to read the story.

The State Worker has received a copy of a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from Yvonne Walker, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1000.

These two paragraphs capture the essence of the letter:

Governor, we've sacrificed. And we've now reached our limit. We cannot and will not allow you to use us as pawns in your political power game.

When we negotiated one furlough day monthly, a wage freeze, and other cost saving changes, we were standing up for state services. While we will continue to battle for quality public services, we are now standing up for ourselves as well. We will fight for a common sense budget that combines cuts and revenues to maintain our quality of life, both now and for generations to come.

Click here to read the letter.

Walker doesn't spell out what "fight" means, but the letter is consistent with her Thursday online address to members, which we reported in this blog post.

But that address, like the letter, stopped short of announcing a formal strike polling of members. That could come as early as Monday, union sources now tell us, if Local 1000 leaders in the field signal that they believe that the rank-and-file is angry enough to vote for a walkout.

You can view the text of the speech by clicking here.

Local 1000 spokesman Jim Zamora provided that text after he confirmed the authenticity of Walker's letter to Schwarzenegger.

The Department of Personnel Administration updated its Web site to include a list of "Furlough Friday" dates. It assumes the current schedule won't include a fourth day each month. Click here for that.

The California Association of Psychiatric Technicians has sent out a call-to-action flier to members. Part of it says:

Governor Schwarzenegger continues his campaign to balance the entire $26 billion budget deficit on the backs of state employees. Now he's again proposing a 5-percent pay cut -- on top of three unpaid furlough days -- or a fourth furlough day as the budget-fix impasse drags on.

Don't wait: Contact your legislators today! And if you've already contacted them, do it again. Their contact information is available in your local White Pages or at www.psychtechs.net. Tell them who you are, where you work and to "Create a budget fix that doesn't hurt staffing, services, pay or pensions!"

Click here to see the flier.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass blasted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this afternoon with this press release that went after the governor for "more furloughs."

More furloughs mean more foreclosures. That's the wrong direction on a day when the federal government has announced there are already more homeless families than ever before. More furloughs mean a loss of revenue for already hurting local businesses who are struggling to hang onto customers in this recession. More furloughs mean fewer services for the public. How are state workers supposed to be effective helping root out waste, fraud and abuse for taxpayers if they are being locked out of their workplaces twenty percent of the time?

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear called The State Worker to specifically correct Bass' statement:

"We haven't proposed a fourth furlough day," McLear said. "The governor would have been happy to explain that to the speaker, but she was flying back to LA today so she couldn't meet with the 'Big Five.' "

He is correct, as a careful reading of today's State Worker column reveals. The governor is proposing a 5 percent pay cut on top of the three-days-per-month furloughs that start Friday. Ultimately, however, it's likely Schwarzenegger will add a fourth furlough day without a budget deal that prescribes otherwise.

California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed is publicly pressing leaders of the California Faculty Association to let members of their union vote on a proposal to take two furlough days a month as part of $584 million in budget cuts.

In a statement posted on CSU's web site, Reed said his officials have met with the faculty union three times to discuss furloughs.

But CFA has yet to schedule anything so members can vote on the proposal. 

Reed appears to be getting impatient with CFA, judging by a message he posted on CSU's Web site, which you can read in its entirety by clicking here.

"We have provided answers to the questions posed by the CFA during our last meeting, and are urging them to present the furlough option to their members for a vote. We need to move forward to address the massive budget cuts that the system is facing before the impacts are magnified," Reed said.

"The CSU is facing an unprecedented crisis and it will take cooperation and shared sacrifice from all of us to get through this next fiscal year and beyond," Reed added.

There are about 23,000 faculty members in the CSU.

CSU said it proposed furloughs to all of its labor unions as a way to address an anticipated $584 million cut, or 13 percent reduction, to CSU's 2009-10 budget.

If adopted by all the unions, furloughs could cut CSU's salary expenditures by about $275 million. CSU said it's eying other spending cuts to cover the rest of the budget gap.

Collective bargaining agreements between the CSU and its employee unions include provisions covering mandated non-retention and layoffs, but not furloughs. Each bargaining unit, therefore, must agree to negotiate furloughs, Reed said.

So far, only two --the California State University Employees Union (CSUEU) representing 16,000 non-academic employees and the Academic Professionals of California (APC) representing 2,400 student service employees-- have agreed to talk furloughs.

Reed's putting his money where his mouth is: on June 5, he already introduced a series of changes to CSU regulations that could pave the way for furloughs and salary reductions among CSU management and executive personnel.

To see the proposed regulations for executive furloughs, click here. 

IMAGE: Chancellor Charles B. Reed, California State University Photo

In the rush to head out on vacation on Thursday, this got by us: The state Senate has told staffers making more than $50,000 per year that they have to take one furlough day per month, starting July 1, according to the Associated Press.

Cap Bureau colleague Peter Hecht reported in this Capitol Alert post that earlier this week a key Senate committee had signed off cuts to staff pay and benefits.

The Senate staff furlough still falls short of the two days that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered for state workers and executive branch staff. And, as The Bee's Kevin Yamamura reported today, the governor is ready to add a third furlough day starting next month if lawmakers don't come up with a budget fix that he'll sign.

Read the AP story by clicking here.

Note: We started our vacation today, although through the miracle of technology we have a couple of posts scheduled for Sunday and Monday. We'll be back July 6. While we're gone, Cap Bureau colleague Andrew McIntosh will keep the TSW blog fed. (He already has a post up today.)

See you next month!

The Los Angeles Daily News has a list of state properties that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to sell. The data table includes the price and timeframe to sell. Is your building is on the list? Click here to see.

Of course, the "For Sale" signs aren't out yet, and as the table notes, getting deals done would take many months, even years. And those guesstimates are probably optimistic, given the condition of the commercial real estate market and the financial system.

Thanks to TSW blog user DT for hooking us up with this link.

From a Service Employees International Union State Council press release that went out Wednesday:

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) today launched a statewide television ad calling on Governor Schwarzenegger to stop protecting Big Oil and Tobacco interests after slashing critical services for our seniors, kids, and college students in the name of "shared sacrifice."

The ad points out the insincerity of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger saying everyone must share the burden of balancing the budget, then slashing services for children, seniors and families at the same time he excuses big oil and tobacco from contributing a dime to shoring up the budget deficit. California big business actually received a tax decrease of up to $2.5 billion in the budget agreement reached in February.

Democrats have proposed modest taxes on oil and tobacco to ease some of the deepest budget cuts proposed by the Governor.

Click the box below to watch the ad through YouTube. For the SEIU release, which includes the ad's script, click this link.

As The Bee reported in this story, SEIU State Council opposed Proposition 1A on the May 19 ballot. The measure would have raised taxes. Local 1000 remained neutral.

The California Statewide Law Enforcement Association and the Association of Special Agents-California Department of Justice are launching radio spots in Southern California today that warn of dire consequences if the lawmakers go ahead with plans to cut $20 million from the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement's $39 million budget.

We reported details of the print ad campaign last week. Now the radio spot is online. You can listen to it by clicking here. Read the union's press release by clicking here.

IMAGE: CSLEA President Alan Barcelona / courtesy www.cslea.com

Dave Massengale corresponds regularly with The State Worker and our Capitol Bureau colleagues. The State Controller's Office employee has some suggestions for how to fix the state budget that we thought would make for a good discussion on this blog. So, with his permission, we're posting his unedited thoughts here (and these are only his ideas -- he's not speaking for his employer):

Problem

We got here because legislatures kept spending even after the vehicle fee was reduced by Gov S. They say house prices going up so they increased their spending even before taxes were paid.

Solutions

-10% pay cut for all State workers, Legislature, welfare, unemployment and anyone else that gets a paycheck from the State.

-10% cut to all depts and offices budgets.

-post all payments over $20,000 so the public can see what is being spent on the special projects and pork spending.

-eliminate all solar & wind projects that don't project a profit within 5 years from implementation. If it is a good thing, it should be able to start generating profit quickly.

-50% cut to all per diem and eliminate the legislative vehicle program, let them pay for their own rental if they want one.

-Put illegal aliens in federal prison and let the feds pay for them. Border control is a federal issue not state. Feds can pay to secure the border or house the illegals.

Dave Massengale

UPDATE @ 6:10 p.m.: We've heard back from the governor's office. We've inserted the response into the post in boldface type.

The Schwarzenegger administration has considered adding two more furlough days to state workers' monthly schedules, according to Alan Barcelona, president of the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association.

During an interview with The State Worker on Monday, Barcelona said that the governor's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, had spoken to the California Coalition of Law Enforcement Associations before the May 19 special election. During that meeting, Barcelona told us, Kennedy "said that we're looking at four-day furloughs and massive layoffs" if voters defeated the special election initiatives that aimed to raise taxes and cap spending to close California's budget gap.

We called Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear, who confirmed with Kennedy that she had spoken to Barcelona and others. McLear said that she didn't recall talking specifically about three furlough days or four furlough days, but McLear didn't deny the possibility.

"Look, there are few direct ways that the governor can get savings," McLear said just after 6 p.m. today. "If our budget situation worsens or our revenue situation worsens and if we don't have a responsible budget solution, it is very likely that more furloughs and layoffs will be implemented."

We've put a call in to the administration seeking comment. We've not yet heard back, but we'll update this post when we do.

With the state facing a $24.3 billion shortfall, observers have speculated that Schwarzenegger's May proposal for a 5 percent across-the-board state worker pay cut -- which Democratic-controlled committees rejected last week -- was a prelude to ordering a third furlough day.

A third and fourth furlough day would double the current furlough pay reduction of 9.3 percent to 18.6 percent and save the state roughly $940 million over 12 months, extrapolating from savings estimates that the administration has put forward for the current furlough policy.

The state Senate Committee on Budget & Fiscal Review has released a summary of actions taken this week by the Budget Conference Committee. There are some nuggets of info in the 18-page document, including a reference that assumes the SEIU Local 1000 labor contract will not get through the Legislature.

The union is continuing to push for lawmakers to pass the contract bill, AB 964, Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker has told us. The deal includes several concessions, but obligates contract-covered employees to only one furlough day per month, retroactive to February, instead of the two unpaid days off per month mandated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Senate report, which you can read by clicking here, notes that lawmakers rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to cut all state workers' pay by 5 percent beyond the reductions already imposed through furloughs.

Then it says this on PDF page 13:

Assumes some savings that will be achieved if proposed labor agreements are not ratified by the Legislature. General Fund savings are estimated at $60 million in 2008-09 and $150 million in 2009-10.

In other words, the committee that would have to pass the contract "assumes" the contract won't get through the Legislature. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of AB 964.

The report notes an anticipated $50 million in employee health cost savings because of the lower-than-expected rates negotiated by CalPERS and another $100 million from the fund's PPO premium "holiday."

The committee also signed off on selling part of the State Compensation Insurance Fund for $1 billion.

IMAGE: freeclipart.com

The California Statewide Law Enforcement Association and its affiliate, the Association of Special Agents-Department of Justice, are launching a media campaign to forestall cuts in the state Department of Justice.

The ad campaigns key on the Legislative Analyst's proposal that Justice cut $20 million from the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement. (To see the BNE line item in the LAO's long list of budget cutting ideas, click here and scroll down to PDF page 25.)

The union will start running radio spots and newspaper ads on Friday. It's framing the cut in terms of jobs that would be lost -- 70 agents, according to this CSLEA announcement about the campaign. Taking that many agents off duty, CSLEA says, is giving in to Mexican drug lords for the sake of fiscal expediency.

You can preview the print ad by clicking here. Here's the Click this link for the union's "California Legislature surrendering to drug lords in Mexico" release.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is touting the findings of a new study as proof that California can raise taxes to balance its budget.

AFSCME notes that the study by Public Policy Institute of California indicates that the state's enterprise zone program, which gives tax incentives to businesses to spur job creation in certain economically distressed areas, "has no effect on job or business creation."

An AFSCME e-mail with a link to the study makes this connection:

These findings effectively repudiate the arguments of those who say that California cannot raise taxes to balance its budget, because doing so will cause valuable businesses and jobs to flee the Golden State.

Is this a reasonable conclusion or a politically motivated intellectual leap? You decide. Click here to read the 32-page PPIC report. If that's too time-consuming, click this link for a two-page summary.

AFSCME is hoping to get media outlets to publish an opinion piece about the study, which you can read by clicking here. And this link will take you to the AFSCME e-mail sent to media that introduces the opinion article.

The Bee's Jim Sanders reports legislators have rejected the 5 percent across-the-board pay cut for state workers that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed.

Click here for that story.

And here's the top of a piece by Capitol Bureau colleague Susan Ferriss:

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg on Tuesday urged his fellow senators to agree to a voluntary 5 percent salary cut effective July 1.

"As we grapple with tough choices to bring our 2009-10 state budget back into balance, the Senate must also make adjustments to the Senate's operating budget," Steinberg, D-Sacramento says in the letter addressed to senators and Senate staff.

Click here to read it.

We always respect blog users willing to publicly put their names with their critical comments. Here's an e-mail cc'd to us by Richard Hildebrand, a state worker with whom we've privately corresponded many times. We're posting his missive here, unedited, with his permission:

From: Hildebrand, Richard (DHCS-BWARD-RDB-WAS)
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009
To: 'Assemblymember.Bass@assembly.ca.gov'; 'Assemblymember.blakeslee@assembly.ca.gov'
Subject: ADDITIONAL CUTS TO STATE WORKERS ARE UNFAIR
Importance: High

I am a State of California employee. I have worked for the State for over 28 years.

I am writing to indicate my opposition to any additional cuts to state workers salaries beyond the current 2 day per month (10 percent) furloughs unilaterally - and perhaps illegally - imposed by Governor Schwarzenegger.

The Governor's and Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) proposals to increase pay cuts another 5 percent, would bring State workers pay cuts to a total of 15 percent. I think anyone can recognize that a 15 percent pay cut is a very large pay cut to any worker.

In the Wednesday 06/10, and again in today's Sacramento BEE, I have read that the Democratic caucus is beginning to consider a number of options to try to save, or limit cuts, to vital programs - through either using some of the budget reserves or raising revenues. I will let the Legislature come to their own decisions as to how to deal with California's current Budget crisis.

What I am disturbed about is how unfair the proposed level of pay cuts to State employees appears to be.

To continue reading the letter, click the link below.

We received more than 1,500 e-mails in the last two weeks, many of them prompted by the three-column series we wrote about state worker pay and benefits starting May 28. We're posting this one, unedited, with the author's permission:

From: Dave Clegern

Sent: Thu 6/11/2009 
To: Ortiz, Jon - Sacramento 
Cc: 
Subject: Devalue us all... 

Just a comment on the continuing sniping back and forth over who needs to bleed for the budget.

The biggest tragedy in all this may be that it's becoming an exercise in statewide devaluation of Californians. There are plenty of vocal "critics on all sides: those who say stateworkers are "overpaid whiners"; that taxpayers are angry, uninvolved children "who expect everything but don't want to pay for it"; that private contractors are "pigs at the trough", "stealing jobs from state workers"; and the Governor and lawmakers are out-of-touch, money-grubbing sycophants.

Nobody wins in any of this, and in the end it becomes easier to lose sight of what we have in common: we're all Californians, and we're all in the soup. To quote that sage California philosopher Rodney King, "can't we all just get along?"

Dave Clegern
State Worker

A note about our e-mail posting policy:

Many TSW users send e-mail our way, hoping that we'll consider posting their thoughts on this blog. We're happy to consider such requests, and we're always looking for well-written, provocative e-mails with a thoughtful, unique point of view.

Generally speaking, the price of admission to becoming what is essentially a TSW "guest blogger" for one post is the courage to put your name with your opinion. Anonymous posts are welcomed in the comments section that follows every blog item.

Thanks to retired "Ranger Bill" and the California State Park Rangers Association for sending this our way.

Speaking of budget cuts, Bee Capitol Bureau Chief Dan Smith reports that the Schwarzenegger administration doesn't like the idea of whacking umbrella agencies under the governor's control. Click here for the post on our sister blog, Capitol Alert.

Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Kevin Yamamura reports that

A legislative budget committee voted unanimously Wednesday to eliminate state agencies altogether, taking dead aim at an administrative layer of gubernatorial bureaucracy that oversees most of the state's departments.

The 10-member panel -- six Democrats and four Republicans -- also voted to eliminate the Office of the Secretary of Education, which lawmakers said is unnecessary because the state already has an elected Superintendent of Public Instruction and a State Board of Education.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recommended last month that lawmakers consolidate more than a dozen boards and commissions to save $50 million. Schwarzenegger also began laying off 5,000 rank-and-file state workers.The Legislature's move Wednesday appeared to be a sharp retort directed at higher-paid administrative appointees who oversee the departments that provide direct state services.

Read the rest of Kevin's story by clicking here. You can view the department Web site by clicking this link.

IMAGE: Education Secretary Glen W. Thomas / ose.ca.gov

The National Conference of State Legislatures is tracking, belatedly, state budget shortfalls around the country and the impact to state workers as of April.

One table on the conference's Web site details furloughs and layoffs by state. Click here for that list.

Another list, "FY 2010 Actions & Proposals to Balance the Budget: Employee Actions," lays out states that have proposed or executed other policies to save cash including hiring and salary freezes, early retirement offerings, travel bans and changes to benefits. You can view that table by clicking here.

The Web site also has an interactive map that shows the condition of state budgets around the country as of April. Click here to view it, but be warned: California's data is way out of date.

And finally, former Bee reporter Herb Sample reports, "Gov. Linda Lingle has ordered three days of unpaid furloughs each month for 14,500 state employees to help erase a $729 million budget shortfall." You can read the rest of that story, which has moved on the Associated Press wire, by clicking the link below.

A third union is offering up ideas that it says would keep lawmakers from having to make deep cuts to services or to the state workforce by pumping up to $44 billion into state coffers.

Here are two key paragraphs from the introduction to "California State Budget Alternatives & Long Term Fiscal Solutions," by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents about 4,500 health and social service professionals in Bargaining Unit 19:

The first steps must be to put aside the politics that paralyze the California budget process, reject policy decisions based solely on ideology, and craft sound, long-term solutions that are fair and that make sense. AFSCME has gathered common sense budget proposals from a variety of sources that achieve $33 billion in revenues for the 2009‐10 Fiscal Year, and over $44 billion in future recurring revenue. This is in contrast to the current proposals of risky borrowing, massive cuts to vital public services, and continued budget meltdowns.

Once sound budget proposals are crafted, the Governor and Legislature must be open and honest with the citizens of California, explain and defend their proposals in their towns, cities and counties, and show the leadership we all are desperately seeking to pass a budget that works. If the budget proposals are fair and address the real structural deficit of California, then Californians will rally behind their legislators and the votes will come. Any recalcitrant legislators will have the choice of shifting their stance to support a fair end to structural deficits or face the wrath of their constituents.

Click here to see AFSCME's 14-page document, including an eight-page list of suggestions.

AFSCME's plan reminds us of SEIU's plan, which you can see by clicking here. And we recently posted CCPOA's list of suggestions to cut costs at Corrections. You can see that post by clicking here.

What are the chances that any of these ideas will find favor with lawmakers? What obstacles, if any, exist to implementing them to solve the budget crisis?

The state Finance Department has released its estimates on what the state saves if all Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed May Revise budget cuts go through. Our colleague, Dan Walters, has details and a link to the list that you can read by clicking here.

Some things that Dan, who was writing for a wider audience than we do here, didn't mention in his post:

The projection assumes rejecting the SEIU Local 1000 contract and keeping all state workers at two-day-per-month furloughs.

We'll ask if that means the governor wants to avoid adding a third furlough day to state workers' schedules. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass not long ago said that the governor might look at imposing a third furlough day if the economy continues to slide.

Reductions to CDCR include rehab services, education and vocational training and substance abuse counseling. These cuts would hit workers represented by SEIU and CAPT.

The plan also takes $100 million from CalPERS' Preferred Provider Organization health insurance reserve to fund two months of "premium holiday" for the state and workers. (And before you ask, yes, CalPERS has already agreed to release the funds.)

And the governor wants to reduce UC and CSU budgets by $335 million.

We asked, Richard Hildebrand answered.

At the end of a layoff blog post on Wednesday we asked, "Are you surprised that it's taken four business days and counting since the layoff notices went out for the state to come up with the details?"

Our question prompted an expansive response from Hildebrand, who says he's been in state service for nearly three decades. Click the link below to read what he said.

CCPOA Executive Vice President Chuck Alexander has sent lawmakers a list of Corrections and Rehabilitation Department cuts that he says would produce "more than a billion dollars of potential savings in the corrections budget ... without compromising public safety, prison security or the safety of correctional officers and other prison staff."

The list, which as of this writing isn't on the union's Web site, lists 10 ideas and concludes,

These are just some of our recommendations for reducing the cost and improving the efficiency of California's correctional system. We look forward to working with you to find others that will help the department succeed in its fundamental mission -- protecting the people of California.

To read the CCPOA plan, click the link below.

The Legislative Analyst's Office has just released its overview of the 2009-10 state budget May Revision. On page 18, it suggests that the Legislature veto the SEIU contract and add a third furlough day each month:

The Legislature could direct the administration to score budgetary savings if it chooses not to approve the labor agreements proposed by the Governor with the state employee units represented by Service Employees International Union Local 1000. (These agreements reduce the number of furlough days for these state workers from two days per month to one day per month.) In addition, the Legislature could reduce state employee salaries by an additional 4.6 percent in 2009-10 for more General Fund savings.

Click here to view the 28-page report.

The state spent less on employee wages in February and March than in December and January. Payroll expenses also fell compared with the same two-month stretch in 2008, according to numbers The State Worker has received from the state controller's office.

Payroll for February, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's two-days-per-month furlough order went into effect, fell to roughly $1.46 billion, down from $1.60 billion in January. Last year, the state cut February payroll checks totaling $1.52 billion.

Meanwhile, the number of state workers grew slightly, according to the controller's data. Checks went out to 239,791 employees in February, compared to 238,970 in January. The state employed 240,346 workers in February 2008.

Full-time employees accounted for most of the growth, their numbers going from 211,639 in January of this year to 212,616 the following month. There were 206,865 full-timers in February 2008.

March 2009 payroll grew to $1.48 billion, and the total number of employees grew to 213,001.

You can see more of the data by clicking here to view the Excel spreadsheets.

So state payroll costs fell even though the number of government jobs grew. But we asked for the payroll data (including specifics on overtime) to see whether we could determine how much, if anything, the state is saving because of furloughs.

It's hard to tell from these numbers (the only ones that the controller's office could provide), and here's why, according to spokesman Jacob Roper:

1 - The numbers include all pay except a few kinds of leave (so overtime is still there).

2 - Other savings, like employer contributions to federal programs, will not be reflected.

3 - Other costs, including the administration of furloughs, programming changes to payroll, etc., will not be reflected.

4 - Employees that used to participate in the voluntary leave program can now use furloughs.

5 - Employees can use furloughs in place of vacation days or planned medical leave, which means those days continue to accrue.

We spoke this afternoon with Chuck Alexander, acting president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, about the layoffs announced last week by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So far, CCPOA has been mostly silent about budget matters affecting their members, including the 5,000 layoff notices sent out to state workers. Preliminary reports indicate that up to 3,600 of the letters have gone to Corrections and Rehabilitation Department employees, and most of those went to correctional officers with 15 months or fewer on the job, Alexander said.

(Note: The Department of Personnel Administration has pushed back its release of specific information about the layoff from this afternoon to Wednesday. The reason, we're told, is that the state needs more time to collate the lists of notified employees before presenting them to the unions.)

Read our Q&A with Alexander after the jump.

California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman was on CNN's "Situation Room" today and repeated points made recently in Long Beach, in Roseville and at her party's Sacramento convention: She believes 30,000 to 40,000 state workers should be laid off. Further, she criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for failing to be tough enough with his budget cuts -- including the 5,000 layoffs he announced last week.

From the show:

I know from my experience that almost any organization you can lay off 10 percent to the bureaucracy and maybe it's easier on the people and would not be a hardship on the state. And while I feel terrible for those individuals who would lose their job, it is in the long-term health of the state of California to get the government to a place where the people of California can actually afford the government that they deserve.

You can read the CNN Whitman interview transcript by clicking here and see the interview by clicking this link.

While it's clear that California's political and economic winds are blowing against state worker jobs, we wondered how Whitman would make all those cuts. If history is any indication, trimming the state bureaucracy isn't like laying off workers at a dot com firm (Whitman made millions of dollars as CEO of eBay).

We've talked to the Whitman campaign, Schwarzenegger's office and the Legislative Analyst's Office about state workforce cuts. What emerged from those interviews were distinctly different views of what it would take to cut 30,000 to 40,000 state employees

A few things to note, based on conversations we've had with Schwarzenegger's office and the Whitman campaign:

Whitman's cut proposal extends to the entire 345,000-person state workforce, including area's outside the governor's direct control (the UC and CSU systems, for example) and departments under the governor's control that get little or no general fund money (EDD, CHP). So cutting those workers wouldn't help the general fund, which is where the state is short on cash.

Making deep cuts to the state workforce takes time because it involves complex policy decisions about the role and scope of government. Those decisions usually have a political component (the governor has to convince the Legislature or state employee unions to go along it) and then the policy leading to the cuts must be executed (such as deciding which prisoners should be released on parole).

As we'll show you tomorrow, the Whitman team believes that her experience as the head of a large corporation gives her the experience and skills to downsize state government. But is running California akin to running eBay? How far does business acumen go when it comes to fixing the state?

IMAGE: Meg Whitman / sacbee.com, Hector Amezcua

Journalist and liberal author Thomas Franks wrote an interesting opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal headlined, "Republicans vs. Bureaucrats:
You can't starve government and blame it too."

Franks focuses on how conservative politicians criticize federal government workers as inefficient system gamers while at the same time choking off financial support for their agencies. In this case, he goes after those who criticize federal bank regulators:

The regulators did fail us. They were too cozy with industry and too blinkered by the free-market faith to see the reality unfolding under their noses.

But what ought to make conservatives choke is the fact that those failing agencies were also the product of years of conservative governance, with its well-known hostility to bureaucrats and its apparent determination to make federal work unattractive ...

So this is how it works with conservatives at the helm: We starve government agencies of resources, we keep their employees' pay well below their private-sector counterparts, we make sure they know what we think of them as they wait their turn at the photocopier. Then we demand they protect us when there's a problem with extremely complex financial instruments, whose designers are defended by some of the best-paid lawyers in the world.

And when the regulators inevitably fail? We declare indignantly that the problem begins and ends with them.

Might Franks say the same thing about California's conservative movement? Is state government struggling because Republicans wish it would fail and have a bias against California's public employees?

The Journal piece will only be available to read online for two more days. Click here to read it.

On Thursday Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, "If you don't like the cuts, sit down with a pen and pencil and figure out where the money is going to come from."

Here's your chance: "The California Budget Challenge." Sponsored by Next 10, the interactive tool lets you work the numbers to balance the budget according to your vision of government. Then it shows you the impact to California in five years.

The site explains the budget process, how the state gets its data and what makes spending and revenues grow. It even lets you decide the outcome of Tuesday's special election so that the "results" factor into your budget's outcome.

You can spend as little as 10 minutes clicking through the site, but we recommend you go slower and take advantage of the information the game makes available. At the end, you can e-mail your budget solution to the governor.

Click this link to go to "The California Budget Challenge."

Kevin Yamamura reports that an administration source says that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to lay off 5,000 state workers by the end of June.

This raises plenty of questions about how the state can lay off employees more quickly than policy allows. For example, the state must meet and confer with state employee unions at least 60 days before terminating employees in a layoff. If the state adheres to that policy, the earliest that workers could be cut would be mid July.

We're heading over to the 2 p.m. budget revise press conference shortly -- with plenty of questions.

Click here for the Department of Personnel Administration's "Overview of the Layoff Process."

Sacbee.com will carry the budget press conference live at 2 p.m. You can watch online by clicking here. Bee columnst Daniel Weintraub will begin comments on the meeting.

Then at 3 p.m. you can check out our live special election Q & A, The Bee's columnist Dan Walters along with Deputy Legislative Analyst Michael Cohen join Weintraub to take questions on the budget and the Tuesday special election. You can chip in your thoughts by clicking here.

From Cap Bureau colleague Kevin Yamamura on our sister blog, Capitol Alert:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will propose eliminating or consolidating about two dozen boards, bureaus and departments as part of the revised budget plan he will release Thursday, according to a source familiar with the plan.

Many of the ideas will be recycled from past budget proposals, such as creating a single Department of Energy by consolidating functions from 12 existing state entities. The governor also will propose eliminating the oft-maligned Integrated Waste Management Board after Democratic lawmakers last month blocked bills that would have done just that.

The Department of Finance hasn't figured out how much this might save, but as Kevin points out, "... the amount of money would be trivial compared to the $15.4 billion or $21.3 billion budget gap the state faces."

You can read more about the plan by clicking here.

IMAGE: www.csucm.edu

Republican Meg Whitman, who hopes to take Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's job in 2010, on Tuesday called for the Legislature to immediately cut the state government workforce by 10 percent in response to the state's growing fiscal problems.

A press release put out by her campaign quotes from a speech she gave to the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce:

"We haven't looked hard enough at where we can cut. We can lay off 20,000 to 30,000 state employees while prioritizing public safety and teachers.''

"We shouldn't have to lay off teachers, we need to lay off bureaucrats."

Those quotes echo what Whitman said in Sacramento during the Republican convention. Then, as now, Whitman didn't offer any specifics about how she would make those cuts.

You can read the Whitman 2010 press release by clicking here.

IMAGE: Meg Whitman / sacbee.com, Hector Amezcua

SEIU Local 1000 staged a rally today in front of Assemblyman Roger Niello's Acura car dealership in Sacramento. Union spokesman Jim Zamora tells us that about 100 union members carried pickets to protest the Fair Oaks Republican's call last week for Assembly colleagues to vote "no" or abstain from AB 964. The Legislature must pass the bill with a two-thirds vote and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has to sign it before the contract goes into effect.

SEIU plans another rally at a Niello dealership on Thursday, Zamora said, although the union hasn't determined exactly when or where yet.

"We plan to keep the pressure on Roger Niello for leading the charge against our contract bill," Zamora said in an e-mail to The State Worker. "We have thousands of members from his district who are outraged at Niello. They're mad because Niello opposes a bill that saves the state $340 million money and brings some stability to the lives of thousands of his constituents."

IMAGE: Assemblyman Roger Niello / sacbee.com

While speaking to Bee Capitol Bureau reporters this morning, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, said that earlier this month she ordered members' "base allowance" cut 10 percent, from $292,000 to $263,000.

The money is used to hire staff and run office operations.

The policy is one of five steps Bass outlined in an April 29 memo to Assembly Chief Administrative Officer John Waldie , shortly after she came under criticism for granting raises for about 120 Assembly aides. She rescinded the raises after reports about them by The Bee and several other media outlets sparked an uproar that threatened to affect the May 19 ballot measures that seek to ease California government's financial mess, in part, by raising taxes.

Click here to read the Assembly Rules Committee May 6 memo on the allowance reduction and Bass's memo to Waldie about the Assembly operating budget.

The list doesn't include party caucus funds, however, nor does it include committee money largely controlled by Democrat committee chairs as the party in power.

Lynn Vilain, a ranking SEIU district official, took aim at Assemblyman Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, in an email she fired off this week.

She wrote the missive after Niello led efforts to delay passing a bill needed to enshrine the SEIU' s new collective agreement with the Schwarzenegger administration.

In a post this week, we told you how Niello urged fellow Assembly members to defeat or abstain from voting on the bill, AB 964, until after the special election.

Niello said he wanted to see whether voters would pass or defeat the six special election measures later this month that aim to cut the state' budget gap, adding that legislators would have a better grasp of the state's finances by then.

Vilain is an SEIU Local 1000 district official and was one of the folks on the ground charged with selling the contract to state workers.

Here's her email, unedited:

Jim Zamora, SEIU, Local 1000 spokesman, just released the union's take on today's Republican refusal to vote for AB-964 in the Assembly.

 That's the bill that would put the recently reached collective agreement with the Schwarzenegger administration into law.

It's a prepared statement from Yvonne Walker, Local 1000 President, who said:

"How could 29 Republican legislators refuse to support a bill that saves the state so much money? This bill will save the state $340 million and could lead to nearly $1 billion in savings if applied to all state workers," Walker wrote.

 "We negotiated this contract with the governor in good faith to help close the budget shortfall. More than 90 percent of our members voted to ratify this agreement. Once again, Republicans failed to do their jobs."

SEIU, Local 1000, the largest state worker union, says it is now is asking thousands of state workers in nine Republican districts, including residents of Assemblyman Roger Niello's Fair Oaks district, to push their elected representatives to support the bill.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass issued her own statement:

The Bee has an editorial in today's fiber and cyber editions, "SEIU wants it both ways on budget."

After noting that SEIU is spending money to defeat Prop 1A on the May 19 ballot, the editorial board writes,

Lawmakers should leave the union's contract in limbo until after the election. Legislative leaders and the governor should also make it clear that the contract will be torn up and negotiations restarted if Proposition 1A is defeated. After all, if Proposition 1A loses, it would be irresponsible for the state to ratify any contract that rests on the assumption of higher and more stable revenues.

Click here to read the entire editorial.

United we stand; divided we vote.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 2620, which represents about 5,000 state workers, is endorsing Prop 1A, the May 19 ballot measure that would temporarily raise taxes while putting a cap on state spending.

The local's endorsement runs counter to AFSCME international's opposition to 1A because of its spending limits. (Taxpayer groups oppose the measure for its higher tax provisions.) Capitol Bureau colleague Kevin Yamamura breaks down the ballot measure's opponents in this lead story in today's Bee.

AFSCME 2620, which represents state employees in the mental health, healthcare and social services fields, also supports Propositions 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E and 1F. In a press release the union called the initiative package, "... a crucial component of the state's overall budget plan, providing the framework needed to help preserve state services and guard against draconian spending cuts."

AFSCME 2620 President Nancy Swindell said, "We recognize the initiatives are far from perfect, but the alternative is far worse." You can read more of what she said in the 2620 press statement by clicking here.

Despite the local's endorsement, it looks like the measures are in trouble, according to this morning's Capitol Alert post by Dan Walters. A new poll shows that none have majority voter support.

As we've noted earlier, the outcome of the May 19 vote will probably have a direct impact on state workers.

From Capitol Bureau colleague Jim Sanders:

The California Legislature avoided deep cuts to its base funding in the new state budget and stands to benefit by tens of millions of dollars in future years if the economy rebounds.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to require cuts of about 10 percent for the Assembly and Senate was shelved.

Closed-door negotiations produced an alternative that relies on voluntary rather than mandatory cuts to legislative spending ...

The deal provides new ammunition to critics who note that legislative employees, unlike other state workers, are not threatened with layoffs or targeted for pay cuts through furloughs.

Click here to read the rest of Jim's story.

IMAGES: www.assembly.ca.gov and www.senate.ca.gov

We're working with Bee reporter Jim Sanders to flesh out this story on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's cuts to the budgets of the state's constititional officers. The cuts in almost every instance are directed specifically at funds that pay for employee wages.

Most of the cuts take 10 percent out of the departments' personal services budgets. Some less, and one, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi's 21-person office, takes a 62 percent hit.

You can read the budget cuts by clicking here. The cut details start at PDF page 8.

Cap Bureau colleague Jim Sanders just returned from a holiday press event with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and brings news that the administration may hold back on sending layoff warnings to 20,000 employees Friday if the governor is satisfied today that a budget deal is close.

The latest word, according to this report from Kevin Yamamura, is that the budget vote has been pushed from Friday to Saturday in the Assembly. Schwarzenegger said he would send out the layoff warning letters if lawmakers failed to reach a budget agreement by Friday.

"If at some point today we're pretty much there (with a budget agreement), that we can realize the savings elsewhere, then we may not have to do layoffs," Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said shortly after the governor issued a Lincoln's Birthday proclamation and took a few questions from reporters.

Meanwhile, we're working feverishly on a story about what the new budget could mean for state employee union talks and taking your calls and e-mails responding to today's State Worker column.

The news is moving quickly on several fronts. Stay tuned to sacbee.com, Capitol Alert and The State Worker blog for the latest.

IMAGE: Aaron McLear / Sacramento Bee file photo, March 2008, Brian Baer

Our phone and e-mail are swamped this morning with state workers clamoring for the latest state workplace news. If you missed yesterday's developments, you can read our story in today's Bee about the ongoing furlough fight by clicking here.

Other than that, there's nothing new to tell you this morning about furloughs or contract talks. But there's always this afternoon ...

Meanwhile, several credit unions are now offering lines of credit to their customers "impacted by the state's historic cash crunch," according to a statement from Controller John Chiang. This press release has a list of the institutions and the dollar amounts that they have committed.

We noticed that The Golden 1 isn't on the list. SCO spokesman Jacob Roper said that the state worker-centric credit union is onboard, but didn't commit a dollar amount so it wasn't put on the list. We've called Golden 1 to confirm. We'll update this post as soon as we hear back.

We also asked Roper if the credit lines were set aside for individuals or businesses. He response: "This is for any of their customers. It could be vendors, state workers or taxpayers" impacted by the state's delayed payments.

UPDATE at 12:50 p.m.: We just got off the phone with Golden 1 President and CEO Terry Halleck. She said that the controller's office approached the credit union about what it was willing to do for members hurt by the budget delay and specifically wanted a dollar amount committed. In her view, the request was asking for a cap on available funds. She wasn't comfortable with setting a limit.

"We'll do as much as we need to do to help our members," Halleck told The State Worker. "We'll do every loan that makes sense for our members and our organization. We're in the business of making loans."

The Legislative Analyst's Office has released this budget report, which includes a discussion of employee compensation and state worker furloughs on pages 5 through 11. This section caught our attention:

More Detail Needed on Furlough to Ensure Real Cost Savings Are Possible.

While we acknowledge the need for difficult measures to reduce General Fund employee costs over the next 17 months, the administration's proposals still lack many important details. For many departments, closing offices on the first and third Fridays of each month -- as the Governor has directed in connection with his furlough executive order -- could work as a cost-saving measure. These reduced employee hours would result in diminished services received by the public.

For 24-hour institutions such as state hospitals and prisons, however, the administration apparently intends to give workers two more days a month of leave time. It is assumed that the leave would be accumulated by workers and used as a substitute for paid vacation time. In other words, the assumption is that workers at these institutions will take as many days off as they otherwise would--just that 34 of those days (two days per month times 17 months) will be furlough days and not paid vacation days.

If, on the other hand, employees at 24-hour institutions take the time off they ordinarily would for paid vacation and, in addition, take their furlough days off, this would mean that other workers would have to work for more hours--often earning overtime--to cover for the employee's extra leave time. While departmental budgets include a baseline amount to cover expected overtime costs, institutional budgets do not include funds to cover extra overtime costs in this particular scenario.

Alternatively, state hospitals, prisons, and other institutional facilities could alter shifts and scheduling arrangements to account for the possibility that average daily staffing levels would be reduced because of the furloughs. This option, however, could affect health and safety at these institutions and run afoul of court or consent-decree requirements for staffing.

The LAO also released its analysis of Judicial and Criminal Justice spending. Cap Bureau colleague Dan Walters wrote about prison cost today. You can read his column here.

The reports are the latest installments of the 2009-10 Budget Analysis Series issued by Mac Taylor's office.

IMAGE: Mac Taylor. Sacramento Bee file photo / Brian Baer

July 27, 2009 note: The link to the Marlette decision has been repaired. Thanks to blog user J for making us aware of the break.

Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette has released his final ruling from today's furlough hearing. We expect that union lawyers are already digesting it and preparing to appeal the decision as soon as Friday morning.

Here's the link to the Marlette decision. We're working on a story for tomorrow's cyber/fiber Bee, and we'll be blogging as events unfold.

The phone calls and e-mails are mounting since Judge Patrick Marlette this morning upheld Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's furlough order. Our Cap Bureau colleagues, Kevin Yamamura and Andrew McIntosh, are working with us to keep you updated. Go here for our evolving online furlough story at sacbee.com.

Some quick-hit news:

SEIU just filed a new unfair labor practice charge, which you can read by clicking here..

Here's the press release reaction to today's court action from state Controller John Chiang.

Here's the governor's statement about the furlough ruling.

The Ventura County Star on Friday ran an opinion column by Thomas D. Elias that chides lawmakers for failing to pursue "all logical and available methods" for straightening out the state budget mess before "asking big sacrifices of both school children and state employees."

... Schwarzenegger's plan is both unfair and destructive. In every detail, from furloughs to Medi-Cal cuts, it victimizes workers and the working poor more than the wealthy. Children of the wealthy who attend private schools would not see their class time and academic opportunities reduced. Computer-literate members of the upper- and middle-economic demographics could still conduct business with the state online, while those in lower educational and economic groups who tend to have less cybernetic training would at least be inconvenienced by shuttered Department of Motor Vehicles offices and others.

You can read the Elias piece by clicking here.

We spent an hour at today's chilly noon SEIU rally on the Capitol's south steps. It looked to us like well over a thousand state workers, some with their kids, showed up for the event despite the cold weather. Here's a little of what we jotted in our notebook:

Several people using walkers and wheelchairs. Shouldn't they be inside?

Signs:

Fix the budget NOW!!
My landlord doesn't take IOU's!
I care about our seniors!
Cuts hurt our kids!
Have a heart -- new revenue is a start

Chants:

"No more cuts!"
"Fired up, can't stand it no more!"
"Back to Hollywood!"

Yvonne Walker (president SEIU Local 1000) to the crowd: "The governor is into creating political theater, not political solutions!"

Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of SEIU International (when we asked what he would tell a discouraged state worker not at the rally): "Don't despair -- organize!"

rally speakers included:

• a retiree
• two union executives (Walker and Medina)
• a home care worker
• a hospital worker
• a children's social worker
• a case manager for the developmentally disabled
• a child care provider
• a college student

IMAGE: SEIU member Mariam Alvarez of Fresno holds a sign at the SEIU Rally against budget cuts for caregivers and student aid on Friday afternoon at Capitol.

Photo by Jose Luis Villegas, Sacramento Bee

The Board of Equalization sent a polite "thanks but no thanks" letter to DPA this afternoon stating that it won't furlough workers. The letter from Executive Director Ramon J. Hirsig says, in essence, that furloughing workers in his revenue-generating agency doesn't make financial sense for the state.

Read the BOE letter here.

This report is moving on the Associated Press wire this afternoon. An earlier version we posted contained a quote from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's spokesman that the Associated Press has subsequently removed.

Governors seek concessions from public workers

By JULIE CARR SMYTH

AP Statehouse Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Governors across the nation are seeking significant concessions from public employee unions that they hope can help balance their teetering budgets during the economic downturn.

From Maryland to California, Ohio to Hawaii, governors have asked or ordered state workers to accept furloughs, salary reductions, truncated work weeks or benefits cuts. They say the concessions are a better alternative to more job losses in the face of record-breaking unemployment.

Unions argue their members shouldn't be singled out and are even more vital in hard times - securing neighborhoods and prisons, educating kids and providing social services to growing numbers of citizens.

In hard-hit Ohio, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland has been a friend of the unions.

But as the state's budget woes have been magnified, he is asking unionized state employees to consider taking a 5-percent pay, shorten their work week to 35 hours, and eliminate paid personal days and holidays to save the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

According to an Ohio union memo obtained by The Associated Press, the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association is waiting to see Strickland's upcoming budget and the state's share of a federal stimulus package before making a decision. Executive director Andy Douglas declined comment because the union is in negotiations.

The memo said there's no guarantee accepting concessions will preclude later job cuts. The 5-percent across the board salary cut could save $163 million and is expected to be mentioned in Strickland's State of the State address next week.

Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland, another state facing an unexpectedly deep budget shortfall, imposed furloughs and salary cuts on thousands of state workers in December in a plan to save an estimated $34 million.

In November, New Jersey trimmed two paid holidays from state workers' annual allotment: Lincoln's Birthday and the Friday after Thanksgiving. Eliminating the former holiday required legislative action, and Gov. Jon Corzine was able to cut the latter on his own.

Utah eliminated one paid holiday a year and is testing out a four-day state work week.

Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle has raised the possibility she will pursue furloughs for the state's 36,000 employees and ask them to pay a larger share of their health insurance coverage and forego raises.

On Thursday, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell - facing down a widening budget gap - said layoffs and unpaid furloughs are likely in that state as well.

He braced state workers for sharing in the state's "universal pain."

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger imposed furloughs two days a month beginning in February as a way to curb costs for the state's 230,000-member state payroll amid a budget deficit projected to grow to $28 billion by 2010.

He has had less success shaving two paid holidays off the current 14 state workers receive, an allotment that is among the most generous in the U.S.

Spokesman Aaron McLear said the governor is "looking under every rock" to cut costs and believes it's a matter of fairness for state workers to do their part.

"The governor doesn't believe it's fair to increase taxes and cut programs on Californians without reducing state government spending first," he said.

Kerry Korpi, director of research and collective bargaining at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, said members understand that governments are in economic crisis.

"The entire country is in a dire situation," she said. "Our members, though, haven't quite been lifted back up from the last fiscal crisis in 2002 and 2003, so we've been asking governors to sit down with us and let's look at all the spending, instead of going straight to the people who provide these vital services."

Some odds and ends we want to bring to your attention as we clear our e-mail and phone messages after 11 days of vacation:

Here's an interesting paragraph from President Barack Obama's speech today, especially when considered against the backdrop of the state's ongoing budget drama and the debate over furloughs and layoffs proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger:

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

What do you think Obama would say specifically to California state workers now facing furloughs?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

SEIU Local 1000 and the state engaged in contract talks through the weekend, but, the union said,

State negotiators rejected Local 1000's entire package proposal in negotiations on Saturday, upping their demands for concessions to $760 million--the amount they say would be saved by the governor's two day per month furlough order, rather than the one day per month they previously had demanded.

Go here to read the rest of Local 1000's report on the talks.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We've heard from state workers that some departments and agencies have already issued two February work schedules -- one that includes furloughs and one that doesn't.

But Department of Personnel Administration spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley said that it's too soon to issue any more details than those outlined in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Executive Order, DPA Director Dave Gilb's furlough memo and the Q&A on DPA's Web site.

"We're still meeting with the unions on the impact of the furloughs," Jolley said. "We want to keep an open mind about what can come of those discussions before we finalize the (furlough) details."

IMAGE: President Barack Obama takes the Oath of Office / Sacramento Bee

California's top financial leaders voted Friday to free up $650 million so that state can start paying some of its bills for work already performed.

Members of the California Pooled Money Investment Board, including Treasurer Bill Lockyer and Department of Finance Director Michael Genest, voted to open the  financial taps after several contractors told a packed meeting about their unpaid bill woes.

The board authorized the Department of Finance to spend the money  based on which disbursements are "the highest priority and best interests of the  state."

That probably means CalTrans, where vendors are owed a staggering $102.9 million.

The news was not so good for those of you who administer state grant programs. Expect more calls from desperate non-profits looking for money on grant work already done.

At the meeting, Lockyer  warned non-profit  groups that they are unlikely to see any state grant money before spring or summer at the earliest, due to the budget impasse and problems in the credit markets that have slowed state bond issues to a trickle.

An investment board staff report shows that the state now has $2.6 billion worth of bills to pay for work already performed under oodles of state grant programs administered by its departments, agencies and commissions.

If you want to see what individual departments or agencies owe in terms of unpaid contracts and grants, pop this  this document  and go to the last page for a detailed list.

The powerful union representing 30,000 correctional peace officers statewide has joined the  battle to torpedo Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's furlough and 10 percent pay cut plan.

Three San Francisco lawyers for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association have filed their own case against the state, the governor and the Department of Personnel Administration in Sacramento County Superior Court.

Lawyers Gregg Adam, Jonathan Yank and Jennifer Stoughton say in court documents filed earlier this week that the furlough and pay cut moves are illegal, unconstitutional and must be stopped by the court.

The union says its members pay cannot be cut without prior approval of the legislature and that has not occurred.

The union's complaint likely will be steered to the desk of Judge Patrick Marlette.

Marlette is already hearing similar cases filed by the state engineers and scientists and the Service Employees International Union, Local 1000, later this month.

Read the California Correctional Peace Officers' Association legal complaint here.

Another California constitutional officer, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, has joined the state attorney general and treasurer in refusing to adopt state worker furloughs next month.

In a terse statement his office just released, Garamendi stated: "We have already cut the Lieutenant Governor's budget by 10 percent this year and we will cut another 10 percent this year. We are public servants for the people of California so we will not be furloughing our staff."

Garamendi's operation has a staff of 20 and -- believe it or not -- three offices (in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento), spokeswoman Beth Willon said.

The Attorney General's office has "declined" to implement the two-day-a-month furlough program that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled Friday.

Instead, the attorney general will implement "alternative measures" to cut costs and spending, including a ban on discretionary travel, conferences and training,  according to an internal memo issued from chief deputy attorney general James M. Humes.

Humes said that as a "separate constitutional office," the AG decided it will ignore the Governor's take-two-days-off-a-month approach and implement its own expense reduction plan to meet the same fiscal targets "without furloughing or laying off employees."
 
"These alternative measures will allow us to achieve our budgetary targets in a more constructive way that will better promote the state's interests," Humes added.

The plan, which Humes conceded "will impose yet additional burdens" on his office after it already suffered a $51 million budget cut just last year, includes these elements:
  
1.  Employees may and are encouraged to voluntarily participate in the Governor's furlough plan when it becomes effective.
 
2.   A clamp down on hiring, which includes the following terms:
 
  -  All formal job offers made and accepted before Friday will be honored.
 
   - Vacancies can be filled only if filling the position is critical and it is approved by the division head and Humes.
 
3. All deals under $25,000 must be reviewed and approved by the budget office, except contracts for expert witnesses and contracts for outside counsel.

 
4.  Purchase orders for deals exceeding $5,000 must be reviewed and approved by the budget office before a purchase is made.
 
5.  Service authorization requests for more than $1,000 must be reviewed and approved by the budget office before obtaining the service.
 
6.  All discretionary travel and conferences, and external training will be denied.
 
7.  Discretionary overtime is prohibited for employees eligible to earn it.  All "mission critical" overtime may be approved by the employee's division head or their designee.  Time off in lieu of cash will be used whenever possible.

Contract talks resumed today. SEIU Local 1000 offered up several suggestions it says will "save the state hundreds of millions without mandatory furloughs."

The proposals:

1. A voluntary reduced work week program of 5 percent, 10 percent or 20 percent.
2. A golden handshake for state workers willing to take early retirement.
3. Converting two state holidays - Lincoln's Birthday and Columbus Day - for two additional personal leave days.
4. Freezing employee health care contributions at 2008 levels.

Read the SEIU statement issued late today by clicking here.

From Lisa Marie Burcar, spokewoman for the California Association of Professional Scientists and Professional Engineers in California Government, sent us this notice:

On Friday, January 9 at 9:00 a.m. in Department 33 (Judge Connelly), a hearing will be on the PECG/CAPS lawsuit challenging the Governor's furlough plan.

PECG/CAPS will ask the court to set the matter for a hearing on the merits on January 20, 2009.

The lawsuit, filed jointly by the Professional Engineers in California Government (PECG) and the California Association of Professional Scientists (CAPS), seeks to block the furlough and pay cut order because the Governor has no authority to take those actions without legislative approval.

View the lawsuit by clicking here.

We recently posted a statement from the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2009-10 budget, which includes a plan to consolidate, streamline or eliminate 28 state boards, agencies, commissions and departments.

What we couldn't tell from from the release, however, was where CAPT stands on consolidating of the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians with the Board of Registered Nursing.

So we asked. Here's CAPT spokeswoman Brady Oppenheim's e-mailed reply:

Hi Jon -

On the BVNPT, we want to find out all of the details about what's involved in this early proposal, and how it would affect Psych Tech licensure if implemented.

It is absolutely imperative that California's Psychiatric Technicians maintain their licensed standing, formal education and regulation -- all of which we've been advocating other states to do for their level-of-care mental health and developmental staff. Here are some articles on what's going on in Colorado, one of the few other states that actually license its Psych Techs.

CAPT is not only the elected union for state-employed Psychiatric Technicians and related staff, but also is the professional organization for all of the state's 14,000 licensed Psych Techs.

Let me know if you want more info! Take care.

The two CAPT Outreach magazine articles Oppenheim sent along focus on a Colorado proposal to end psych tech licensure in 2014. You can read the magazine's Oct. 20 piece here and its Dec. 30 follow up by clicking this link.

State Finance Director Mike Genest unveiled Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2009-10 budget proposal today. It continues the call for a employee furloughs, two fewer paid holidays each year, changes to overtime pay calculations and layoffs.

The new wrinkle: Schwarzenegger wants to dump CalPERS as the health care rate negotiator / administrator for the state workforce. Here are the pertinent paragraphs on pages 45 and 46 of the governor's plan:

Porposed changes to General Fund expeditures include:

A decrease of $132.2 million in health care costs beginning in January 2010 by contracting for lower cost health care coverage directly from an insurer rather than through CalPERS. Savings beginning in 2010‑11 will prefund Other Post‑Employment Benefit costs.

And Non-General Fund adjustments include:

A decrease of $47.9 million from various special funds in health care costs by contracting for lower cost health care coverage directly from an insurer rather than through CalPERS. Savings beginning in 2010‑11 will prefund Other Post‑Employment Benefit costs.

You can read the 2009-10 budget plan here.

And remember the California Performance Review? Schwarzenegger is reaching back to it for ways to consolidate and streamline the government. An insert to the budget outlines more than two dozen state boards, agencies, bureaus and commissions the administration wants to streamline, combine or eliminate.

You can read that document by clicking on this link.

The Bee is all over the governor's proposal. We have a half-dozen reporters and editors working the story from various angles this afternoon. Watch for several stories about it tomorrow.

You can watch Finance Director Mike Genest talk about the proposed 09-10 budget by clicking here.

Our Capitol Bureau colleague, Dan Walters, writes in The Bee this morning:

Currently, while Schwarzenegger appears to have a broad agreement with Democrats on a plan to reduce the budget deficit by $18 billion, they've balked at his insistence on measures that public unions abhor, such as furloughing state workers, privatizing some functions and trimming unionized in-home health care services.

Publicly, the governor says the steps are needed to balance the budget and improve the economy, but there's no doubt that he wants to compel Democrats to defy the unions and thus crack, even slightly, their alliance.

Read Dan's column by clicking here.

We're hearing that policymakers at various state departments and agencies are hammering out furlough specifics for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's consideration. We understand that at least two agencies are considering the following:

Entire facility shutdowns. The idea is to save building operating costs and personnel scheduling hassles by simply closing down for two days each month. The other option would be to keep offices open as they are now and stagger unpaid days off among staff. Some departments, we hear, are considering that plan.

Suspending flexible scheduling. Everyone would work the same schedule, again, to ease managing the furlough.

We also hear that Franchise Tax Board employees have been told that they are exempt -- for now. Ditto for folks at the Board of Equalization. Both agencies generate money for the state, so it behooves the governor to keep those squirrels on the treadmill. Still, the governor could withdraw the FTB exemption, according to an e-mail that we've seen, if Schwarzenegger determines that the state needs to make more salary cuts.

Dec. 30 AMPLIFICATION

From the FTB e-mail:

We have been asked to share this message with you along with the caveat that the intent of the Administration regarding exemptions could change if economic conditions worsen.

We read this as meaning that FTB's exemption could be withdrawn, but one user questioned our interpretation. He believes the e-mail implies that all exemptions across departments are subject to review.

IMAGE: jobclipart.com

J.J. Jelincic, former California State Employees Association president, had an opinion piece in Sunday's Bee that criticizes the governor's proposal to furlough state workers.

He also faults the newspaper for supporting furloughs, as it did again on Sunday in this editorial.

Some key paragraphs from the Jelincic piece:

... Rather than trying to address the budget crisis by finding and cutting out state programs that are inefficient and costly, the governor seeks to cut the quality of all state services by reducing their human resources by at least 10 percent through furloughs and layoffs.

It is ironic that The Bee supports this when it knows firsthand that when you reduce resources you reduce the quality of the output ...

... My parents' generation invested in the future, in schools, parks, libraries, hospitals, universities, highways and massive water projects. That was their legacy. I'm ashamed that my generation's highest priority has been to build prisons and to not raise taxes.

... Let's have a real debate. What will our legacy be? What are we willing to pay for and how? Let's adequately support the programs we want and need. And let's be honest and kill programs that don't work or that we don't value.

A few points from the Bee editorial:

... In the face of a $42 billion two-year deficit, Democrats have yet to publicly acknowledge that a reduction in state payroll must be part of the solution.

... Are furloughs a painless solution? Hardly. A 5 percent payroll cut (10 percent if the state were to order furloughs two days a month) would hurt many state workers, especially those on the lower rung of the pay scale.

Democrats and some union leaders we've contacted say furloughs are a ham-handed approach. Some claim they'd prefer a more surgical strategy of identifying programs that are outdated or of lesser priority, and cutting those.

... Fine. If Democrats and their union handlers can agree on a way to achieve more than $700 million in state payroll savings without furloughs, we'd like to see it. But we doubt they'll produce such a plan ...

Both pieces are worth a full read.

Jelincic's call for a "real debate" to figure out what government can and cannot do echoes what SEIU President Yvonne Walker told The State Worker a few weeks ago.

Now carry the idea forward: Can you envision entire programs, departments or agencies being dismantled? Which ones? Would the unions sign off on any budget cuts that eliminate jobs? What if your job was one cut by an agreement between the Schwarzenegger administration, the legislature and your union?

Click here to read the unfair labor practice charge that SEIU has filed against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And PECG and CAPS are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed yesterday in Sacramento Superior Court. Read that document here.

We assume more lawsuits are coming.