Does that mean Arnold too?

I believe that Arnold does not accept the governor's salary.

I have also heard that, edmomom. I think it's nice since he and Maria are filthy rich already.

I believe he donates it to charity.   So now the charity will suffer.  :- (

Note it says "workers", not administrators or legislators. Somehow I'm not impressed, particularly since the article says the legislators are on vacation until August 4th. If the lawmakers actually cared, they'd be locked in session working on this until a budget was passed, not out of session for two weeks during this critical time period, even if they do come back for votes. Now if Arnold wrote an executive order that would make them come back before the 4th, that would impress me.

What will the employees do in the meantime.  I'm sure they have mortgages to pay and food to buy.  This is absolutely absurd.  Maybe they should all apply for public assistance just to make a statement. 

The employees won't have to suffer if the members of the state legislature will get off their dimpled a**es and pass a budget.  

The ones that are to pass the Budget shouldn't be paid one red cent until it's passed, then you'll see em off there butts.

Exactly Murph. Why should some Office Tech making 2200 a month suffer because of a lack of effort by the legislators.

Besides having to make do on minimum wage, when they do get retroactive pay, Uncle Sam will get a much bigger portion in taxes. Obstensibly, that would be penalizing the Indians because the Chiefs went home to smoke their Peace Pipes. And just what are those guys up there smokin' anyway?

We can't file for any public assistance - no cash aid, food stamps etc because we own houses and cars and would have to sell them first.  We would be absolutely screwed if he is able to do this. I could not pay my bills, feed my kids and it would screw up our credit since none of the banks really care that you have a legitimate excuse not to pay -  buy groceries or pay the credit card? I think he forgot that there are rank and file who work directly for him, in the role of security and administration who might be a little upset to make min wage -  don't think any of them would work real hard.  My siblings, husband, parents and inlaws are all state employees in various depts - already everyone is talking lawsuits.  This is why we have those hated Unions because should this actually happen, we have damages written into our labor contracts -  it would cost the state much, much more in the long run.  I believe ours is 5% of the total salary penalty for every SINGLE day that full pay is late- had to be written in because it is actually common for the state to short your salary - happened to everyone I know -.  Multiply that times 200000 employees and you have a huge amount of money every single day.  The penalty just for our immediate family, midrange employees would be 285/day per person, each day until pay is restored.  If everyone is same pay scale then penalty is 57000000 per day for 200000 employees.  I think the loans might be cheaper.    And your right, when we do get paid, Uncle Sam will have a much bigger portion because they will tax it at the overtime rate, 41%.  Happens every time we get back wages.

Does anyone know if the Legislator passed their own raise this year?  I think it should be based on Merit and WE should vote on it.

Supv. Ray Watson says Arnold should freeze wages of legislators until budget is passed. Private businesses and vendors who contracted with the state are not getting paid. 

Amlynam: Which union are you in?

Catpaw: I'm told that legislators and their staffs had their pay cut off at the budget deadline last month. Apparently that happens every time the budget is late, but there's a credit union in Sacramento that advances them money because it happens pretty much every year.

IUOE Local 501 Unit 12 -  my husband's , sisters' and brother in law's and father-in-law's union  (let's keep it in the family shall we?) - the penalty has been written into the contract for many, many years.  9 years ago our paychecks were 18 days late and the penalty was well over $2000 each (taxed at the overtime rate of course).  The state has a habit of litigating every bit of the contracts they sign, costing the state (us taxpayers) loads of money.  Currently they are litigating the COLA raise from 2007 we have yet to receive that is also subject to that 5% penalty.  The supreme stupidity of the bureaucracy in Sacramento never ceases to amaze me.

I wonder if you have to belong to that credit union to get advances on your pay.   We are really hoping the controller is able to block this.  We would receive 262 a week before retirement, healthcare premiums, etc are taken out - leave us about 350 a month to buy gas and food and support our kids.

To be fair, I think Arnold and his family should have to live on 262 a week like the rest of us with no access to his assets at all.  He should buy groceries and gas and pay rent and utilities on that money, just like every other state employee.

Most people think of these employees as stereotypical Cal Trans employees asleep in their trucks ( no offense dad) and DMV workers,  they are teachers, mechanics, electricians, painters, tour guides, curators, doctors, nurses, engineers, and the list goes on and on - most work very hard for their money and are underpaid in comparison to the private sector - in some cases by 30% or more.

Maybe if they did "smoke" something in Sac, it would make them a little more relaxed and encourage more give and take - not everyone is going to get their way and I don't think any of them understand the word compromise at all. 

Apparently the State Controller is also concerned about the lawsuits. Deputy Controller Hallye Jordan says the Controller will ignore the executive order until he gets a court order compelling him to lower salaries in the followup story on the SacBee: www.sacbee.com/111/story/1105466.html

Since he controls the payroll, if he decides to ignore this, the paychecks should be issued as normal on August 1st. I doubt any court order will go into effect soon enough to affect the August 1st paycheck since those payrolls usually go out for processing several days ahead of time.

So this sounds like yet another ill-thought-out political ploy.