Commission slashes state officials' pay

Sacramento Bee ^ | 5/20/9 | Peter Hecht

[SmithL]

BURBANK - Declaring that elected officials must share the pain of California's fiscal crisis, an independent commission voted today to impose an 18 percent pay cut for statewide elected officials and all members of the Legislature.

The California Citizens Compensation Committee, which sets salaries for state officers, earlier voted in favor of a more modest 10 percent pay cuts in an April 29 meeting in Sacramento. But the action couldn't stand because the seven-member board lacked the required four votes.

But today the commission voted 5-1 to make a deeper reduction in elected officials' salaries because of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's announced plans to lay off 5,000 state workers.

They also said they were influenced by voters' overwhelming approval of Proposition 1F - a ballot measure that will ban increases in lawmaker salaries - in any budget deficit year.

[Drango]

It’s a start....but boy are they tone deaf. They should have reduced pay AND pensions back in Jan.

[calcowgirl]

In a statement, Schwarzenegger praised the decision. "The people of California have spoken loud and clear: they want the state to live within its means and do not want any more government waste or pay raises for California's elected officials," he said. "The state's elected officials need to follow suit and cut back just as California families and businesses have in this tough economy."

Yet Arnold presides over more than 300,000 full time employees. Will we see him slash their salaries 20%? Of course not!

Why only "elected officials," Arnie? So you can be King?

[calcowgirl]

Legislators don’t receive pensions. They are eligible for Social Security, unlike the majority of State employees.

[freedumb2003]

We (Calif) should just go to a part time Legislature like they do in Virginia and other states.

When they are in session there is nothing but spending and mischief.

[karnage]

Slash those bureaucrats.

Or their salaries.

[Chode]

cut them to 4 or 5 times the lowest paid worker like they want all the corporate suits to do...

[mojitojoe]

The Marxist Kenyan in the WH told them not to even think about touching salaries of labor union members or they could forget about stimulus money.

[counterpunch]

Now there needs to be a constitutional amendment banning spending mandates.
What few people understand is the vast majority of California’s tax revenues are already spent before they even come in. California has a mixture of dedicated percentages of tax revenues and hard figures earmarked for various programs, creating a situation, like we are facing now, where more money than the state has may be required by law to be spent. And all of this has been approved by voters piece by piece over the years.

The only way to solve this is by making all such spending mandates unconstitutional. That would override the past measures all in one swoop. California should not have fixed spending minimums that tie the hands of the legislature and make cuts off limits, and increases mandatory. That is how we have gotten into this mess.

[MIchaelTArchangel]

The cut will drop the annual pay of a legislator from $116,208 to $95,291.

That is still about 50% too high for "quality" of the typical California politowhore.