The State - News from Jan. 9, 1986

The California political establishment was accused by tax reformer Paul Gann of “fleecing the taxpayers” with a quietly enacted law that will raise the salaries of top state officials and give some former state officers pensions of more than $100,000 a year--more than the salaries received by officials currently in office. Gann, co-author of the Proposition 13 property tax revolt of 1987, has launched a ballot initiative campaign to block implementation of the 1983 pay raise bill. The initiative would amend the state Constitution, imposing a salary cap on all local and state public officials in California. It would set the governor’s salary at $80,000 and limit all other public officials’ salaries to 80% of that unless overridden by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.