California State Controller Johnny Chaing Tells Unions to Lobby Washington DC for $$$
H,
Take a look at the May Treasury Tax Receipt report and tear it apart please. The actual tax receipts net were around 50,000M.
http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0510.pdf
I think they are in deep doo doo. June figures is likely their last gasp. If June quarterly tax receipts are down they are going to have a hard time covering it up any longer.
Here is May 2009 to compare it with.
http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0509.pdf
S,
Okay... I will... a little later... busy getting everyone's farms going.
LOOK... at what California COMPTROLLER JOHNNY CHIANG told the UNIONS to DO... LOBBY WASHINGTON DC for a BAILOUT!
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/06/10/2811946/controller-suggests-feds-help.html#mi_rss=State Politics
Controller suggests feds help fight off minimum wage for state workers
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By Jon Ortiz
[email protected]
Published: Thursday, Jun. 10, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Thursday, Jun. 10, 2010 - 9:56 am
Hoping to head off an order to drastically reduce state worker pay if budget talks stall, Controller John Chiang's office sent a message to employee unionsHilda Solis. this week suggesting they reach out to a friend – U.S. Labor Secretary
Although the three-page plain-paper memo acquired by The Bee is unsigned, the controller's office confirmed that
Chiang Chief of Staff Collin Wong-Martinusen wrote the document circulated to labor leaders on Monday.
"Seek Solis' immediate intervention on an unprecedented pay practice that, if allowed to proceed in California could become the new norm for all state and municipal governments that have late budgets or face fiscal distress," Wong-Martinusen wrote.
Aaron McLear, spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, blasted the idea.
"It's totally inappropriate for the controller to seek federal cover to get around implementing the law," McLear said Wednesday afternoon.
California's Supreme Court in 2003 said state worker pay may be temporarily withheld to the federal minimum – currently $7.25 per hour – when lawmakers fail to pass a budget that appropriates money for payroll. Once a budget is passed, the withheld pay is issued.
A minimum wage order would hit roughly 241,000 state workers and another 73,000
California State University employees, the controller estimates.
Schwarzenegger tried to invoke the 2003 decision two years ago when budget talks dragged past the June 30 fiscal year-end. The administration told
Chiang to reduce paychecks to the then-federal minimum of $6.25 per hour until the
Legislature and the governor agreed on a deal.
Chiang refused, citing concerns that complying would violate
labor law. Restoring pay also would be an enormous challenge for the controller's Vietnam-era payroll system. Controller payroll specialists estimated it could take up to six months to issue all the back pay withheld once a budget is signed. That would expose the state to another round of labor lawsuits.
While Schwarzenegger says the wage reduction is a matter of law, not choice, union officials believe the minimum wage talk is designed to press his political opponents to make budget concessions. The governor has said he won't raise taxes to deal with the state's $19 billion budget gap.
"Maybe the governor thinks this will put pressure on the
Legislature to give in to his proposals," said
California School Employees Association lobbyist
Dave Low, noting that withholding employee pay doesn't save the state money – and may put it in legal peril.
Schwarzenegger's
Department of Personnel Administration last year sued to force
Chiang to comply and won.
Chiang appealed the decision, even though the
budget crisis was over.
Oral arguments in the case are set for June 21 in
Sacramento's 3rd
District Court of Appeal, nine days before the end of the current fiscal year. After that, Schwarzenegger can opt to invoke the minimum wage law.
The timing of the court hearing suggests it could quickly decide the matter to have an impact on this year's budget cycle, Wong-Martinusen wrote.
"Given the
3rd DCA's right-leaning composition and its past history of adverse rulings relating to labor interests, we should prepare for a ruling which affirms the trial court's decision," the memo says. "If this occurs, the Controller may be ordered to pay minimum wage as early as the July payroll, which is scheduled to be paid on August 1st."
Chiang spokesman
Jacob Roper said the controller still believes in the legal merit of the appeal and that the memo was simply acknowledging a worst-case scenario.
"This is about identifying risk," Roper said. "It's not that we're expecting an adverse court ruling."
With a threat of state worker minimum wage looming, Wong-Martinusen suggested reaching out to Solis, whose
Labor Department enforces federal labor law.
"When she was still a member of
Congress, Secretary Solis joined
Controller Chiang in publicly opposing the Governor's minimum wage order," he wrote.
Labor Department spokesman
Joseph De Wolk declined to comment on the legality of reducing state worker pay because the matter is in the courts.
The minimum-wage issue is on the agenda for today's meeting of the
Labor Coalition, which includes legislative and political representatives from public
employee unions.
Wong-Martinusen will join the group to lay out the issues, the controller's office said.
The meeting and the minimum wage memo aren't out of the ordinary, Roper said, noting that the controller's office recently met with administration officials and shared the same information.
"This shows that (
Chiang) is working with stakeholders who would be affected by the governor's politically driven wage order," Roper said.
