More than 200,000 California state employees are expected to be paid their full wages in July and August after a Superior Court judge denied an injunction sought by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — More than 200,000 California state employees are expected to be paid their full wages in July and August after a Superior Court judge denied an injunction sought by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Schwarzenegger was hoping the court would order that state employees’ paychecks be reduced to the federal minimum wage due to the budget impasse.
Schwarzenegger has said state law requires the reduced paychecks as California enters the third week of the fiscal year without a spending plan in place.
In 2008, the Republican administration sought to impose the minimum wage on state workers, citing a 2003 California Supreme Court ruling that found that the state could not pay normal wages to state workers without a legislative appropriation or a passed budget.
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But the controller, John Chiang, a Democrat, refused to make the change, arguing the state’s decades-old computerized payroll system was not able to manage the complex task and such changes would violate federal and state labor laws. (Workers would be repaid their wages after a budget was settled.) In a lawsuit over the matter, the courts ruled in favor of Schwarzenegger.
Issue revived
The budget finally passed, but the issue was revived again this month when the administration again sought the wage reduction after lawmakers failed to come up with a budget by the beginning of the fiscal year, July 1. An appellate judge ruled in the administration’s favor, and Chiang again refused to comply. So the administration sought a court order to reduce workers pay to $7.25 an hour, until the final appeals process was exhausted. The average base pay for state employees is $65,484 per year.
Judge Patrick Marlette, of Sacramento County Superior Court, on Friday denied the administration’s request, ruling that it would cause undue harm to workers, and said he would make a final ruling later this summer. By then, the state may have a new budget. But the administration wants to win anyway.
“We’re confident”
“We certainly hope there will be a budget so we don’t have to pay employees minimum wage,” said Lynelle Jolley, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger’s Department of Personnel Administration, “but we’re confident we’re going to win this on the merits.”
The ruling would cover most of the state’s 237,000 employees; salaried managers would face cuts of $455 a week if the governor is victorious.
Deputy Controller Hallye Jordan said her office was pleased with the court’s decision.
“The current 40-year-old payroll system cannot be manipulated at the governor’s political whim,” she said, “without making errors that will put taxpayers at risk of millions, if not billions, of dollars in penalties and damages for violating state and federal labor and contract laws.”
In a second ruling Friday, the judge denied a request by several unions to join the lawsuit on Chiang’s side. They included the Service Employees International Union Local 1000 and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
State doctors and lawyers would not receive any paycheck because minimum wage laws do not apply to those professions.
Compiled from Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Associated Press.