State Run Amuck; Democrats, State Employees With their Hefty Salaries/Benefits & their Unions are Bankrupting California:

State Run Amuck; Democrats, State Employees With their Hefty Salaries/Benefits & their Unions are Bankrupting California:
By Marc Chamot

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently went to Washington DC to meet with members of the Obama administration and other Washington politicos for help.

He needed some serious help with the current California budget fiasco, a crisis that his own legislature can’t seem to be able to fix or repair. He went on a mission for federal taxpayer bailouts for his state, unfortunately for him; he was turned away and came back empty handed.

I’ve got to hand it to President Obama; his administration felt that California did not need, or wasn’t deserving of a bailout. Obama felt that California can fix what’s ailing them at the moment. And he is absolutely right.

A bailout for California would open up a Pandora’s Box where all other states of this union, would come on knocking, when they have grossly mismanaged their state affairs, just like California has done.

California’s current financial and budget crisis weren’t created by an act of God, earthquakes, and or by any other natural means. It was created by human GREED and public corruption.

It was all created and generated by California politicians’ quest for votes, along with state employees’ greed, and by big California unions’ quest for power.

California, throughout these decades, Democrats have turned taxpayers’ state moneys into cash cows for their state unions and employees. It has become such an uncontrollable disease that no one, and not even this Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger can put a lid on it.

For example, some Californian unionized prison guards can sock away $300,000 a year with overtime pay. With almost 35,000 prison guards within the California prison systems, most are commanding average wages of $100,000 a year and overtime, and it is costing California taxpayers a whopping $3.5 billion a year to maintain these people.

3.5 billion dollars a year is going to California’s prison guards, just in their salaries alone, not mentioning health and retirement benefits, which costs a whole lot more, it is costing state taxpayers about a million dollars for every ten guards.

The most populous state in the union, has the most state employees, they are the most paid, and most expensive to maintain.

Here are some approximate numbers that may overwhelm you with awe and rage, as to the complexity of this financial disaster. A simple math 101 will suffice enough to get some answers.

There are about 105 California state employees for every 10,000 population. As of July 2008 the total California population was at 36,756,666. So in essence there are approximately 385,944.993 employed by the state.

Then the estimated total cost to taxpayers for all of these state employees, on the average of $70,627 per employee, it is an outstanding $27.25 billion dollars a year being spent on state employees!

With these economic hard times, the real players are starting to come out the woodwork, and are showing us that it's their state employees, and their unions who truly RULE California.

The facts are these, Democrat politicians in California cannot get far, or run for higher office, without any union endorsements and votes from its members. It’s the political norm in California for politicians, to payoff for a union’s endorsements, which usually means you grease the hands of the unions and of its members, and in return you get their VOTES.

Here is an example on how unions have become so powerful that it overshadows the real power and the votes of the people in general.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) is the California prison guards' union. In recent years the CCPOA has become a major player in California politics. Its political influence has grown to the point that it is widely considered to be one of the most powerful political forces in Sacramento. Its lobbying efforts and campaign contributions have greatly facilitated the passage of legislation favorable to union members.

This is what the unions have done for prison guards, what used to be a salaried job at $14,400 a year around 1980. It has now escalated to what is currently. They have even turned less costly ways of handling prisoners, and turned them into taxpayer financed lucrative cash cows for themselves.

Correctional Police Officers Association (CCPOA) closed four nonunion prisons and then gave the state's 32,000 prison guards a 30 percent raise.

So what we have left today is that the average salary of a prison guard is $70,000, which on the average can easily climb to above $100,000 with overtimes.

The CCPOA may be the state's most powerful state employee union, but there are other state and cities’ unions who aren’t far behind. The SEIU union is the next most powerful Californian union, and their tentacles are deeply entrenched into state and local politics.

Per Sacramento Bee’s analysis and news report last month that did an expose on California state employees and their wages, here is what they came up with. Some figures.

State of California Employees Base Pay by positions, as of 2008
Typist, Custodian $34,678
Staff Services Analyst, Employment Program Representative...$50,143
Associate Governmental Program Analyst $66,006
Transportation Engineer, Correctional Officer $83,938Top 20% Highway Patrol Officer, Registered Nurses $110,858

While the average annual state worker base pay in 2008 was $63,815, include overtime and the number rises to $70,627.

And this is not counting the cost to other taxpayers within the state’s municipalities, for their city employees’ and their hefty salaries coming with their union buddies’ help.

Starting with San Francisco, police officers make approx $64,000 (close to $65K) plus overtime. The Oakland CA police officers make $65K, along with San Jose, Redwood City, and etc. their police officers also make $65K+.overtimes.

Firemen make around $68,000 to $70,000 base salaries plus hefty overtimes per year.

And San Francisco Bay Area Transit systems (BART), its employees earn an average of $125,000 a year including benefits, and there are even $70,000 a year bus drivers folks!

San Francisco’s MUNI, and their bus drivers make an average of $70,000 base salary, plus overtime per year, just for driving 'frikin' buses!

This is why California is in shambles, folks.

When everyone in California is losing their jobs, their homes, and people’s wages keep going down. These GREEDY bastards still want their money, actually our money, while everything is going down, like rents, home values, and so forth. But these people don't care, they still want their money, and a whole lot of it, with the help of politicians and their unions!

More on California financial crisis: Modoc County CA; Your Hypocrisy is Unbecoming of a True Conservative & the Truths about California’s Budget Woes Revealed:
“And then we’ve got Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who finally came out with the "truths" for once.And state workers don't like this one bit!The real reason that California cannot get their budget settled, and retire their $26.3 billion dollars deficits, it’s because of California Democrats, and their love affairs with their state employees and their unions.

It’s absolutely true folks! California employees and their unions are tied in so deep with their Democrat politicians; it would be suicide for any Democrat to go against their powerfully connected and well financed base.

Democrats have resisted every effort to cut and trim state employees’ hefty salaries, their costly medical costs and retirement benefits. But they are after everyone else's moneys, including raising taxes.

Schwarzenegger: “protecting the special interests who benefit from our dysfunctional system was more important to them than solving our deficit, it steps on the TURF of the people they want to protect.” i.e. money and votes?With the state being plagued by dwindling real estate values, large business closures, faced with 34% drop in personal tax revenues, and laced with higher unemployment, it’s just asinine to be keeping these high paid state employees, and with their beyond to affordable benefits for any much longer.”

Sources: Special Budget Crisis Edition of California Journal of Politics and Policy

The State Worker: California state employees have a pampered image
State workers,
• State workers make more than the "boss." California state employees' average base pay in 2008 was $63,815, according to a Bee analysis of state wage data that excluded the university systems. The median, the point at which half earn more and half earn less, was $66,006.

Meanwhile, federal statistics show that the average wage among all Californians last year was $48,090 and the median was $36,441.

• State workers are in an economic cocoon. Businesses are shedding workers, cutting pay and shutting down. California's unemployment rate from January through March of this year went from 10.1 percent to 11.2 percent.

State government grew by 1,362 full-time jobs during that same period, according to state payroll data. And this while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued 20,000 layoff warnings and ordered a virtual hiring freeze. Another sign that...

• State workers are pampered. Example: For years, working holidays for the state earned what amounted to double time-and-a-half: Overtime pay for working the day, plus another day off with pay.

Schwarzenegger and the Legislature changed those workplace rules and others during the last budget crisis. Although the new policies are in line with federal standards, the unions are fighting to keep the old ones.

• Retiree benefits. State workers have $48 billion coming to them in the future, money that the state doesn't have. The government has been making minimum payments, when it should be setting aside extra.

And the state's retirement plan uses a formula based on pay and service time – not the value of, say, stock investments – to set payments. Some folks say that the deal is an example of how.

• State worker unions have too much power.
Another measure is money. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association, for example, spent about $4 million on state political campaigns last year, according to state records. Service Employees International Union Local 1000, representing about 95,000 state workers, paid out $3.4 million.