Sacramento is a company town. The dominant company? State government. In our region, approximately 81,000 people work for the state of California, not including those employed by public universities.
On our opinion pages, we devote a fair amount of ink to matters that affect those employees. Over the past year, we’ve opposed the governor’s furloughs of state workers for three days a month, noting, as we did in August, that three days results in an effective 14 percent pay cut, imposing real hardships.
At the same time, with the state facing perpetual multibillion-dollar deficits, we’ve argued for shared sacrifice. Republicans must stand up to anti-tax groups and industries, such as oil companies, that avoid paying their fair share. Democrats must confront their powerful allies, the state employee unions, and find ways to trim state personnel costs and reduce long-term pension obligations.
On Tuesday, we ran an editorial – “Dems must bend on state payroll” – that supported parts of the governor’s latest proposal to cut payroll costs. He wants to reduce state salaries by 5 percent, and require employees to contribute an additional 5 percent of pay to state pensions.
As we noted, “This proposal would be less costly to employees than the current three-day-a-month furloughs and less disruptive to the public.”
We knew the editorial would draw a strong reaction, and it did. It quickly triggered more than 10,000 hits online, and more than 260 comments. Many of them were supportive.
Yet many readers, reviewing this editorial in isolation, were angry and upset. Several accused us of holding a grudge against state employees and being blind to the sacrifices they’ve made.
“You are so insensitive, greedy, and cruel!” wrote one of these readers. “Now you are advocating bypassing state law to reduce the state employees’ pay even further during these difficult times. State employees are already economically stressed and we don’t appreciate your comments.”
As an editorial page editor, I’ve grown accustomed to impassioned reader response. It goes with the territory. Yet it always troubles me when someone accuses us of being inattentive to people’s hardships. We work pretty hard to keep that on our radar.
State employees, particularly those on the lower end of the pay scale – janitors, groundskeepers and office clerks – are hurting. They haven’t been hit as hard as people who’ve lost jobs or faced deeper cuts to their pay or benefits, but they are hurting. Our editorial Tuesday should have reflected that.
At the same time, The Bee isn’t just the state capital’s newspaper. It must look out for broader interests. California faces an unprecedented budget catastrophe. While payroll (excluding benefits) constitutes only about 10 percent of the state budget, it can’t go untouched in the search for solutions.
To close a $20 billion hole, state leaders must be willing to trim every aspect of government operations. They must also seek every form of revenue that can be reasonably sought within the shackles of state law.
Voters, taxpayers, state employees and others are all angry now, with good reason. The crisis California confronts was totally foreseeable.
Its foundation was laid when state leaders cut taxes and padded programs during boom years, leaving the state vulnerable to the inevitable downturn.
One reader named Joe, frustrated with our Tuesday editorial, beseeched us to hold the governor accountable for his actions on the budget.
“For example, why did the governor initially wait nearly an entire year to declare a fiscal crisis when he clearly had plenty of evidence that warranted much earlier steps?” Joe asked. “With all his supposed business acumen, why does the governor continue to impose across-the-board edicts to freeze hiring and spending, regardless of funding source or priority?
These are excellent questions. We’ve asked them to the governor in past meetings, and his responses have been less than adequate.
Yet ultimately, if Californians want to rebuild the Golden State, they must move beyond the blame game and focus on the future.
Reform is imperative.
This state needs a tax system that smooths out revenue and makes us less vulnerable to swings in the stock market. It needs a budgeting system that looks beyond the one-year horizon.
We have been advocating such reforms, and others, for years. We will continue to do so.