State worker furloughs were an emergency measure that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger employed to deal with last year’s fiscal crisis. They helped the state preserve cash at a time California was having trouble paying its bills. It was harsh medicine.<\/p>\n
With three furloughs a month, workers endured what were close to 15 percent pay cuts. The public was inconvenienced as well, most notably by longer waits at DMV and unemployment offices. <\/p>\n
Restaurants and other businesses lost money as state workers stayed home. Also, some agencies that generate revenue, the Franchise Tax Board, for example, lost money. <\/p>\n
Now that the immediate emergency that spawned furloughs has passed it’s time to end them. Even the governor understands this. He says he will end furloughs June 30, but why wait? End them now.<\/p>\n
Still, while ending furloughs makes sense today, the governor’s authority to resort to furloughs in future emergencies should not be curtailed. The governor was right to veto Senate Bill X8 29, a measure by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg that would tie the hands of future governors.<\/p>\n
Among other things, Steinberg’s bill would exempt from future furloughs all civil servants whose positions are funded at least 95 percent from sources other than the general fund. It also would exempt employees of revenue producing agencies such as the Franchise Tax Board and the Board of Equalization from furloughs.<\/p>\n
Such exemptions undermine equity, leaving some state workers subject to furloughs and others not. That’s unfair. There are also practical problems with Steinberg’s approach. Some positions are funded by multiple sources, and it is not always possible to tell when at least 95 percent of the funding comes from the general fund.<\/p>\n
Also, while some state workers are paid from special funds, that is, not from the general fund, initially all payroll flows out of a central account. It can take months to apportion the different funding sources to the right special-funded agencies.<\/p>\n
When the governor resorted to furloughs last year, he was dealing with a cash-flow crisis. Cash levels were so low the state had to issue IOUs to some vendors. Future governors need that flexibility to cut payroll costs fast during similar cash emergencies.<\/p>\n
A more equitable way to achieve salary savings would be to cut pay and benefit levels across the board. That requires cooperation from state employee unions and their allies in the Legislature. Given the state’s continuing budget crisis, Steinberg should use his energy and clout to persuade his friends in organized labor to agree to concessions.<\/p>\n
If leaders of public employee unions and Democrats continue to resist such concessions, they should keep in mind the potential price of success. If pay rates and benefits can’t be reduced and furloughs are outlawed during future cash crises, layoffs become government’s only option.<\/p>\n
How do state workers benefit when furloughs and pay cuts are replaced with unemployment?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
State worker furloughs were an emergency measure that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger employed to deal with last year’s fiscal crisis. They helped the state preserve cash at a time California was having trouble paying its bills. It was harsh medicine. With three furloughs a month, workers endured what were close to 15 percent pay cuts. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-478489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}