What do you think about the talk of furloughing some state workers two days a month to help ease the state's budget crisis? A judge ruled that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can put the plan into action beginning next week. Will it really come to pass? Or is it more threatening talk to try to jar the state legislature into some kind of action on the budget?
And if you have a family member that would be affected, what will the impact of the furloughs be on your own family budget?
I could go along with the idea as long as every state employee was affected regardless of rank or positions (I know there would be some exceptions). It sounds so far that only rank and file employees are affected. I could be wrong. I just haven't heard otherwise. Are any of the Governor's staff being furloughed? Are any staff in legislator's offices being furloughed? What kind of budget cuts and staff cuts are legislators implementing in their own offices. All of us are being asked to cut back, have they? It's shameful that the workers who are providing services directly to our citizens are being affected. That affects both the workers and our citizens. I know law makers will argue they are doing work directly for our citizens, but if I need to renew my driver's license, I won't go to their office to do so. Apparently, I won't go to the DMV on the first and third Fridays of the month either.
I believe that the amount of income should be a consideration as well.
It will affect the families a great deal cause with this economy any cut is too big. The only reason he is proposing a partial furlough is because if he did a complete one then it would do nothing because they would be entitled to unemployment that thr statr doesn't have money to pay. Nothing will jar the legislature into getting it done until the are hit hard in the wallet but they will not ever feel the crunch because they wont to that. I saw drop them to %50 pay and let go off their office staff and offices before cutting the hours of those that help the public and bring in the revenue. Oh silly me thinking logical like that.
As a state employee it works out to a 9.23% reduction in pay. It is official and scheduled. Everything will be shut down. I am looking forward to it because I can use the time off and my husband also works. I am concerned for state employees that are making low wages. For them it will be a significant hardship. A large number are making close to minimum wage and can't afford the healthcare options and they are being affected by the higher prices of food and electricity, etc. for them it is a double whammy and they didn't cause the budget mess.
Have any of the PEU's come up with a plan to help or has that even crossed their minds.All I hear about are lawsuits and expensive furniture.What does our resident "State Employee" think would be doable,fair,and have impact...in 25 words or less.
Within the last six months, several PEUs requested their members, in all job classifications, identify areas of budget waste and suggest changes that could save money. The idea being, the people actually doing these jobs have a better understanding of how things work. A large number of ideas were proposed and provided to the governor on several occasions. So far, at least publically, Sacramento seems to be ignoring them. Some I can remember were:
*reorganizing the California Lottery
*identifying billions of dollars of uncollected back taxes
*increasing efficiency of tax collections
*identifying sources of wasteful private contracting
*identified savings in prison costs
This website discusses several of these in detail.
http://thecabottomline.org/
As for my opinion, I thought I explained that before but... I think each agency's budget should be gone through line by line and each agency be required to cut waste or give strong arguments as to why not. There is a lot of waste. Many agencies are loathe to change and yet things can be done better. I think the roles of the recipients of welfare type programs should be reviewed with a critical eye. Many are receiving benefits that shouldn't be. People used to pull themselves up by their bootstraps now, there is no need to. Some have made careers out of working the system for a free ride. Countries like Norway and Germany, etc. require command of their language as part of their citizenship requirement. We need to adopt that as well. Special programs for classes other than english should be cut. Total emersion in a language is quick and will delay most students only about a year. They can catch up when they become fluent. It's true in other countries, why not here? Minority programs should be re-examined. In many places, minorities are the majority. The number of special programs should be reduced. There are too many. I could go on and on. The most productive change that could be made is changing categorical budgets and spending that hamper the ability of agencies to use their money efficiently and effectively. Their yearly budgets should be determined by goals and actual needs to reach those goals, not by how much they spent the prior year. Agencies shouldn't have to worry that they can't get the budget they need because they spent so little the year before. That promotes wasteful spending. Being able to move money where they need it would promote saving strategies. For example they are forced to buy office supplies when they could use the money to automate procedures for long term cost savings.
The bottom line is the partisan politics is killing California. Both sides are so busy staying true to the policies of their parties the issues are left unresolved. Our legislators seemed proud of this and they should be ashamed. It is clear they have no idea how to balance a checkbook let alone run a state.
Brian, twenty five words or less? Haven't you learned by now that is impossible for me? HA
Hey today is my first furlough day! Weekend chores are out of the way. I'm doing my taxes. I need my federal refund to help cover the $500 reduction in my net pay. That is going smoothly. I'm getting dinner prepared, nice not to have to rush home after work to get it started. Cloths in the washing machine. Dogs at my feet when I take breaks to blog. Yep, life is good. Every cloud has a silver lining if we look for it. Though I'll readily admit in my situation the furloughs will be easier to weather than for some others. Others will have a harder time finding the silver lining. My thoughts are with them.