Armageddon California style updates for 02/09

Time to review the latest events in the California State Budget crisis. Notice I did not label this a progress report since there has not been enough of that to report. However, here are the highlights for this month.

First, John Chiang, the state controller announced suspension of all travel and per diem expense checks for all state employees including the legislators. They receive per diem checks of $173.00 to offset the expense of living in Sacramento. Let's do the math. 120 lawmakers times $173.00 a day is $20,760.00 daily savings. For a 5 day work week, that's $103,800.00 a week. This does not include the travel and per diem expenses for the rest of the state work force. Remember, this is just a suspension of payments due. When the legislators finally get around to passing a budget it will be paid.

Next, Governor Schwarzenegger tried to enact a 2 day a month furlough (days off without pay) for all state employees. John Chiang resisted the effort with the support of state employee unions, so Arnold had to take John to court to enforce it. The courts have already ruled that Arnold can do this since it is an emergency.

On February 10, Governor Schwarzenegger announced that the State of California will lay off 20% of its work force, letting go of those with the least amount of seniority. Wow, that's one out of 5 workers. California has about (for now anyway) 200,000 employees. I can't imagine that in a pool of 200,000 employees some wouldn't be willing to accept an early retirement if some of the payment reductions that usually apply to early retirements were waived. But then again, public employee pensions are very expensive. Maybe Arnold and the lawmakers made a good choice to let go of the least senior employees. If anyone has any thoughts on the subject, share them here.