By the time you read this, either the ink will be drying on California's last-ditch budget deal or the state will be poised to issue IOUs.
Either way, Tuesday was a rubber-meets-the-road moment in a process that has tested the fortitude of our state's residents and the character of our elected officials.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday, July 02, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 46 words Type of Material: Correction
Sandy Banks: A column on legislative pay cuts in Wednesday's Section A said Cal State Sacramento professor Barbara O'Connor voted in favor of furloughs for university professors. O'Connor has not yet voted, but intends to vote for the pay cut after ballots go out next week.
Voters conveyed their frustration loud and clear in May, rejecting ballot measures that would have pushed our problems into the future and let legislators off the hook.
The state board that sets legislative compensation took the hint and moved quickly to order an 18% pay cut for any lawmaker elected after this year. Then, on Tuesday, the same board cut their benefits package -- health benefits, car allowance and tax-free living-expense payments -- by 18% as well. Still, neither of those cuts kicks in right away. The reduced benefits don't take effect until December. And the salary reduction doesn't even apply to this crop of lawmakers.
Given that, I think state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) deserves credit for his campaign to persuade his Senate colleagues to prick themselves now and bleed a little. All but two of 40 state senators heeded his request and voluntarily reduced their salaries by 5%, beginning today. Some gave up even more, and many did so without his prodding.
They must feel like no good deed goes unpunished. The benefit cuts, on top of their salary givebacks, mean a double hit -- equivalent to about $13,000 annually -- on their wallets.
Can you hear the cheering outside of Sacramento?
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The $235,000 in Senate pay cuts that Steinberg wanted is just a tiny piece of the puzzle of cuts and tax hikes needed to close the state's $24-billion budget gap. Most senators went along, mindful of the gesture's symbolic meaning to state workers, whose salaries have been cut by more than 9% through unpaid furloughs.
Republican Roy Ashburn from Bakersfield refused, telling Times reporter Patrick McGreevy that he suspects the savings will go back into the Senate budget -- controlled by Democrats -- rather than the state's general fund.
And Inglewood Democrat Roderick Wright opted out, denouncing the giveback as an empty gesture.
Wright prides himself on being an iconoclast. What he does with his salary is not the public's concern, he said: "I could have easily said, 'Put me down; I'll be number 39.' But I've never been one who goes along to get along."
