- Mar 3, 2000
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I'll be surprised if it really happens but it will be interesting to see this play out.
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/07/01/2864148/schwarzenegger-orders-minimum.html
The Schwarzenegger administration today ordered State Controller John Chiang to reduce state worker pay for July to the federal minimum allowed by law -- $7.25 an hour for most state workers.
The instructions from the Department of Personnel Administration exclude roughly 37,000 state workers in six bargaining units that recently came to tentative labor agreements with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Some employees, such as doctors and lawyers, would get no pay because federal exempts them from any minimum wage requirement. Managers, supervisors and others who don't get paid for working more than 40 hours per week would receive $455 per week until a budget deal got done.
Schwarzenegger has invoked a 2003 state Supreme Court decision as grounds for the move. That ruling, White v. Davis, held that without a budget that appropriates money for state payroll, employee wages can be withheld to the federal minimum. That condition exists today, which is the start of the 2010-11 fiscal year and the state is without a budget. The back pay would be paid once a budget is enacted.
The administration issued similar instructions to Chiang during a budget impasse in 2008. The controller refused to comply over concerns that doing so would violate federal law. He also asserted that the state's decades-old computerized payroll system couldn't handle the complexities of changing the pay for 240,000 state workers affected by the governor's instruction.
Calls to the Controller's office seeking comment were not immediately returned.
Update
Chiang won't comply
http://sco.ca.gov/eo_pressrel_controller_statement_on_minimum_wage_ruling.html
SACRAMENTO The following statement was issued by the Controller in response to the Third District Court of Appeals ruling regarding the Governors authority to reduce state employee salaries to the minimum wage absent a budget:
As expected, todays ruling by the Third District Court of Appeal restates the Supreme Courts 2003 ruling in White v. Davis, but goes several steps further by saying my office could be excused from reducing the salaries of some 250,000 employees to minimum wage if it is practically infeasible to do so without violating federal labor laws and the State Constitution.
Like the Supreme Court in White, the appellate court declined to resolve the feasibility issue.
This is not a simple software problem. Reducing pay and then restoring it in a timely manner once a budget is enacted cannot be done without gross violations of law unless and until the State completes its overhaul of the state payroll system and payroll laws are changed.
I will move quickly to ask the courts to definitively resolve the issue of whether our current payroll system is capable of complying with the minimum wage order in a way that protects taxpayers from billions of dollars in fines and penalties.
http://sco.ca.gov/Files-EO/07-02-10lettertoDPA.pdf
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/07/01/2864148/schwarzenegger-orders-minimum.html
The Schwarzenegger administration today ordered State Controller John Chiang to reduce state worker pay for July to the federal minimum allowed by law -- $7.25 an hour for most state workers.
The instructions from the Department of Personnel Administration exclude roughly 37,000 state workers in six bargaining units that recently came to tentative labor agreements with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Some employees, such as doctors and lawyers, would get no pay because federal exempts them from any minimum wage requirement. Managers, supervisors and others who don't get paid for working more than 40 hours per week would receive $455 per week until a budget deal got done.
Schwarzenegger has invoked a 2003 state Supreme Court decision as grounds for the move. That ruling, White v. Davis, held that without a budget that appropriates money for state payroll, employee wages can be withheld to the federal minimum. That condition exists today, which is the start of the 2010-11 fiscal year and the state is without a budget. The back pay would be paid once a budget is enacted.
The administration issued similar instructions to Chiang during a budget impasse in 2008. The controller refused to comply over concerns that doing so would violate federal law. He also asserted that the state's decades-old computerized payroll system couldn't handle the complexities of changing the pay for 240,000 state workers affected by the governor's instruction.
Calls to the Controller's office seeking comment were not immediately returned.
Update
Chiang won't comply
http://sco.ca.gov/eo_pressrel_controller_statement_on_minimum_wage_ruling.html
SACRAMENTO The following statement was issued by the Controller in response to the Third District Court of Appeals ruling regarding the Governors authority to reduce state employee salaries to the minimum wage absent a budget:
As expected, todays ruling by the Third District Court of Appeal restates the Supreme Courts 2003 ruling in White v. Davis, but goes several steps further by saying my office could be excused from reducing the salaries of some 250,000 employees to minimum wage if it is practically infeasible to do so without violating federal labor laws and the State Constitution.
Like the Supreme Court in White, the appellate court declined to resolve the feasibility issue.
This is not a simple software problem. Reducing pay and then restoring it in a timely manner once a budget is enacted cannot be done without gross violations of law unless and until the State completes its overhaul of the state payroll system and payroll laws are changed.
I will move quickly to ask the courts to definitively resolve the issue of whether our current payroll system is capable of complying with the minimum wage order in a way that protects taxpayers from billions of dollars in fines and penalties.
http://sco.ca.gov/Files-EO/07-02-10lettertoDPA.pdf
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