Old technology foils Schwarzenegger's wage order

[Evo]

This is so pathetic. I don't think the average worker should get their pay cut due to bungling politicians. What I do think is that the people that can't seem to do their job and get this fiasco fixed should have their pay stopped as an incentive to actually do something.

If they weren't government employees, they would have been fired a long time ago.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_california_budget_minimum_wage

For the second time in two years,

Schwarzenegger has ordered most state workers' pay cut to the federal minimum wage because lawmakers missed their deadline to fix the state's $19 billion budget deficit. The Legislature's failure to act has left the state without a spending plan as the new fiscal year begins.

A state appellate court ruled in Schwarzenegger's favor Friday, but the state controller, who issues state paychecks, says he can't comply. One reason given by Controller John Chiang, a Democrat elected in 2006: The state's computer system can't handle the technological challenge of restating paychecks to the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour.

John Harrigan, who served as a division chief for the state's payroll services from 1980 to 2006, said upgrading the system would be complicated, time-consuming and expensive. He said it could be done, but not without violating the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and substantially altering the payroll process.

"It's not something that you can take lightly and do overnight," said Harrigan, who also served as chief deputy controller from 2000 to 2002. "You have all the

collective bargaining for civil servants and (state universities) that have to be taken into consideration. ... It's very complicated. It would take considerable effort."

The state's payroll system was designed more than 60 years ago and was last revamped in 1970, Hallye Jordan, state controller's office spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

1970?? Surely that can't be correct, we'd be talking about ancient mainframes.

 

[mgb_phys]

I bet they could have managed to implement a pay rise

 

[KalamMekhar]

19 billion US dollars. Who spent it all, and on what?


I find this quote quite fitting to the current situation.

"A Democracy cannot survive as a permanent form of government. It can last only until its citizens discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority (who vote) will vote for those candidates promising the greatest benefits from the public purse, with the result that a democracy will always collapse from loose fiscal policies, always followed by a dictatorship." Lord Thomas MacCauley 1857

 

[mgb_phys]

19 billion US dollars. Who spent it all, and on what?

California has something of a surplus of democracy.
To approve a new proposal takes 3men and a dog to vote for it, to remove an existing spending commitment takes a 99% majority vote and the agreement of 3 popes.

 

[Evo]

California has something of a surplus of democracy.
To approve a new proposal takes 3men and a dog to vote for it, to remove an existing spending commitment takes a 99% vote and the agreement of 3 popes.

If it wasn't so close to the truth that would be hysterical.

 

[TMFKAN64]

To make things worse, the requirements are reversed on tax increases. Er, "revenue enhancing measures".