Lawmakers in hard-up Calif. boost staff pay

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-17 22:49

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger leaves a news conference at the State Capitol in Sacramento, California July 1, 2009. [Agencies]

SACRAMENTO, Calif.: Against a backdrop of deep fiscal distress, several California lawmakers rewarded their employees with pay hikes during the first half of the year, an Associated Press review of legislative pay records showed.

At least 87 California Assembly staff members received raises totaling more than $430,000 on an annualized basis, even as the state faced a growing budget deficit that led to furloughs and pay cuts for many other government workers and steep reductions in core services.

The review of records obtained under the state Legislative Open Records Act found that salary bumps went to three employees in the office of Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, the Los Angeles Democrat who leads the 80-member chamber, and three to staff members of the Democratic caucus she oversees.

In the 40-member Senate, nine staffers had a boost in pay, leading to an annualized increase of $152,000.

Aides to several members of the Assembly and Senate said some of the increases were not raises in the traditional sense. Rather, they described the higher pay as extra compensation for employees who were working more hours.

In the Assembly, 39 employees received pay increases of 10 percent or more. Of those, 15 saw increases of 20 percent or more.

In the Senate, seven of the nine who received increases saw their pay rise by 10 percent or more as they began working more hours, according to staff.

Five Assembly staffers and two Senate staffers who already made $100,000 a year or more saw their pay rise.

The Assembly had 1,206 employees on its payroll as of June, said Shannon Murphy, a spokeswoman for Bass. Of those, about 7 percent had received pay increases, the AP review found.

Murphy said the Assembly's annual payroll had decreased by $1.3 million in June from a year earlier, with 15 fewer employees.

The Legislative Open Records Act allows the Legislature to be far more restrictive in its release of information than other state agencies, which are covered under a separate law, the California Public Records Act.

Both houses of the Legislature refused the AP's request to make the payroll records available electronically. Details of their spending are not listed in the annual budget the governor signs, as they are for other state agencies and departments, meaning there is no way to cross-check the information the Legislature provides.

The first six months of the year represents a period in which lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger were grappling with a deepening budget deficit that eventually forced them to make some $30 billion in cuts over a two-year period to education, health care, state parks and other programs.

At the same time the Legislature was awarding pay increases, some 200,000 state government employees had been furloughed two days a month, equivalent to a 9 percent pay cut. That has since been increased to three days, or a nearly 15 percent pay cut.

During that period, Assemblywoman Lori Saldana, D-San Diego, awarded a total of $41,000 in annualized pay increases to her staff, the highest total increase for any member of the Legislature.

That included 20 percent pay boosts for three of her employees and a 15 percent increase for her chief of staff, Lucy Krohn, bringing her annual wage to $110,640.

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