California Government Officials Wages And Salaries

Sending shudders through the bureaucracy, the Assembly on Thursday approved a bill to eliminate 190 state public information officers, reduce salaries for members of 11 state boards and commissions, and cut travel budgets in half. A 51-11 bipartisan vote sent the measure sponsored by Assemblywoman Valerie Brown (D-Sonoma) to the Senate. The Senate has approved one part of the package: to reduce salaries on boards and commissions to the $52,500 paid to state lawmakers.

The Senate Rules Committee voted Wednesday to prohibit the payment of salaries to the governor and state legislators for each day they fail to enact a state budget beyond the June 15 constitutional deadline. Over Republican opposition, the committee voted 3 to 2 to approve the proposed constitutional amendment by Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco), which also would reduce the vote needed in each house to approve the budget bill from a two-thirds majority to a simple majority.

Gov. Pete Wilson on Tuesday asked his estimated 2,500 political appointees to voluntarily continue giving up 5% of their salaries to help reduce the costs of state government. Aides to the governor said the appointees are being asked to forgo participation in a pay restoration program next spring and to give up any claims they have to back pay and vacation credits.

State government supervisors, top managers and political appointees who took a 5% pay cut last year will have their pay restored and will be eligible for a windfall in cash or vacation next spring despite a looming shortfall in the state budget. Gov. Pete Wilson ordered the pay cut in 1991 to help deal with the budget crises that have confronted him since the day he took office. But Administration officials decided to restore the salaries after 18 months and repay the money employees lost.

Declaring that "public service is a privilege," not "a license to pig out" at taxpayer expense, state Controller Gray Davis on Tuesday called for a crackdown on a practice by a number of California cities that allegedly have been artificially inflating public employee pensions. Davis made his remarks in the wake of a detailed audit, released last month, that alleged pension abuse in several cities, including six in Los Angeles County.

Using an Orange County case to underscore the point, state Controller Gray Davis said Tuesday that he wants to impose civil and criminal penalties against public officials who artificially inflate their salaries to receive large pensions.

Setting the stage for another court battle with Gov. Pete Wilson, state Controller Gray Davis announced Tuesday that he will not accede to the Republican governor's demand that he give a 5% pay cut to 25,000 state employees in supervisory positions. In a related budgetary development, the Health and Welfare Agency announced $60 million in reductions that will include the elimination of more than 1,300 positions and the layoff of roughly 400 state employees.

At a time when the University of California has been forced to trim its budget by $300 million and raise student fees 40%, UC President David P. Gardner and other top administrators are being paid more than their counterparts at other major American universities.

Gov. Pete Wilson and key legislative leaders reached basic agreement Thursday on a package of welfare cuts, tax increases and pension program revisions aimed at balancing the state's $56.4-billion budget. The agreement came shortly after the Senate passed a $1.4-billion income tax bill that would reduce renters' tax credits, require independent contractors to pay withholding taxes and cap interest deductions on home mortgages at $70,000 a year.

When Gov. Pete Wilson proposed raising taxes by a record $6.7 billion, he said he had already considered every possible reduction in state spending that could humanely and wisely be made. Further cuts, Wilson said, would mean releasing convicted felons before the end of their terms, denying prescription drugs to impoverished children, and eliminating research and care for Alzheimer's disease. But Wilson's proposed $55.