...He is putting the state further in hock in order to appease his supporters in the state employee's union.
This Los Angeles Times article details how he has back-loaded concessions in order to lower the deficit for this budget. These two paragraphs tell us the damning details:
Under the contract proposal, workers would defer a 5% pay increase that they received this summer, but they would not lose any take-home pay because the state would cover employee contributions to the state pension fund. The state would make those payments over the next 15 years, a total of about $200 million plus interest at a rate that could be as high as 8.25%.
The 12 paid days off could be taken one a month, but most employees are expected to bank the days and cash them out when they retire, generally at higher pay. In addition, at a time when health care costs are rising sharply, the state agreed to pick up an increasing share of employees' health premiums for the next three years. That would translate into an increase of take-home pay effective Jan. 1.
Talk about selling our children into slavery. Even a Democratic official was upset:
Former state Controller Kathleen Connell, a Democrat, was more blunt: "It becomes a house of cards that will topple under its own weight in future years when all these payments, whether for bonds or employee benefits, come due," she said. "We have to get control over the runaway negotiations with some of these unions."
The piece also notes, further on, that the administration has backed down from a tougher stance this spring, after the unions started dumping massive amounts of cash into anti-recall committees. But, fear not, the governor's spokesperson assures us that there is no quid pro quo here; the governor is only doing what is best for the state. Yeah, right.
posted on September 12, 2003 06:09 AM
