Here is what tax payers can look forward to if California State employees are paid minimum wage until a budget is signed.
The Controller will have to hire more staff and pay them overtime to convert all computer-stored and executed pay warrants from the existing pay scale to minimum wage.
State employees will get loans to hold them over the 2 or 3 months it takes to pass a budget.
When the budget is signed, the Controller again will have to expend a nice chunk of time and money converting everything back to the negotiated pay scale for every classification in the state.
Then the controller will have to calculate and cut checks for the back pay for every classification, with 5% interest for the 2 or 3 months.
So the way this works is...
State employees get loans to hold them over 3 months, after which they are made whole, with interest.
In the meantime, the Controller has to waste a boatload of money changing over from current pay scale to minimum wage and back again, PLUS cut make up checks.
This is nice little waste of taxpayer money that accomplishes precisely nothing. Anybody who is for it after reading my explanation, is either for more government waste, or thinks that the state employees will be hurt in some way by getting 3-month loans from their local banks, and paying it all off after getting their backpay checks.
What a waste of time and money. Oh well, that’s government for you.
Here is the real deal. Arnold is hoping to get the state workers so mad that they scream at their legislators to come to the table and pass a budget. That is all this is about. And to that futile end, he is going to waste a nice chunk of taxpayer money making the Controller staff up and pay OT to convert the computer programs from current scale to minimum wage and pack and then cut a bunch of back pay checks.
Pure idiocy.
Cliffs notes:
State workers will get loans to cover their minimum wage pay, later getting back pay with interest. They will come out ahead by 5% interest.
The Controller will waste a bunch of money converting the computer program to minimum wage, waste a bunch of money converting it back, and waste a bunch of money cutting the checks for back pay.
Arnold is doing this to pressure the CA Legislature to pass a budget.
This will accomplish nothing, not hurt the state workers, but will waste money.
Exactly, the state’s payroll system was designed more than 60 years ago. The Legislature approved $130 million in 2005 to revamp it but it never got done. Now, years later the state has had fewer experts on hand who could thoroughly understand the programming languages used to design the system. All in all, the whole thing would take them almost 6-9 months to do but as you say, what’s the point?
CA voters need to wake up. You cannot ‘punish’ politicians AFTER they are in office, the ONLY way to punish them is to never vote them into office again.