Budget Stalemate Bite Felt by 7,000 State Employees : Government: Maintenance crews and others don’t get their paychecks. Many civil servants also face wage cuts and unpaid furloughs once a spending plan is adopted.

For almost 7,000 state workers throughout California, the failure of Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature to agree on a budget hit home Monday--they failed to receive their paychecks.

These highway maintenance crews and legislative employees, who are paid twice a month, are among the first to feel the effect of the state’s fiscal crisis.

If there is no budget by the end of the month, the state would miss meeting its payroll for its entire work force of about 381,000--most of whom get paid on a monthly basis.

Most of the state employees will be able to borrow against their anticipated pay from financial institutions. The largest state credit union, Golden 1, is offering to advance up to 100% of salaries without interest or fees, until the budget is settled.

But that only deals with state workers’ immediate needs. At every level of government service, state workers are facing a degree of uncertainty that goes far beyond the short-term problems of delayed paychecks.

Civil servants--many of whom went to work for the state because of the job security and stable benefits--are threatened with the real possibility of 5% pay cuts, unpaid furloughs totaling 10% of salary, and layoffs.

For months, the president of the California State Employees Assn., Yolanda Solari, has been advising union members to put off buying houses and automobiles.

There have been large layoffs before, but in the past they have been limited to particular agencies, said Pat Pavone, chief of benefits for the Department of Personnel Administration.

“Every July for the last few years, the state has been under the threat of having no budget . . . and there’s always been some miracle at the last minute,” Pavone said. But this year, she said, workers are facing “the brutal news laid out on the bargaining table.”

For the first time, that news includes the prospects of reduced salaries and the possibility of layoffs, she said.

Already, 4,200 top managers around the state have been told that they were to have their pay reduced by 5% effective July 1.

The Wilson Administration has proposed a similar pay cut for virtually all other executive branch employees--a total of 206,000 full- and part-time employees in the state civil service. The reduction in pay has been built into a $56.4-billion budget approved by the Legislature but awaiting the governor’s signature. A bill that would give Wilson the authority to cut the state payroll 10% by forcing employees to take up to two days a month in unpaid leave is pending in the Senate.

For many employees, the combined pay reduction could be financially devastating.

Pamela Golovkin, whose husband, Paul, is a journeyman waterworks employee for the state Department of Water Resources, last week wrote an impassioned letter to the governor, urging him to reconsider the budget measure that is caught up in negotiations with the Legislature.

Paul Golovkin’s $1,800 monthly take-home pay is exactly enough to make the mortgage payment on their $220,000 house in Yorba Linda. To help support themselves and their four children, Pamela Golovkin works as an accountant for a resort in the City of Industry.

As a new employee, Paul Golovkin could have expected a merit increase of up to 5% July 1. Instead, he could well see his pay cut by that amount.

“We’re thinking about leaving the state,” Pamela Golovkin said.

Debbie Murray, an accountant with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System--the state agency that manages about $63 billion in funds for state and local government workers--said: “I put a target on the back of my chair.”

Murray said she has “enough seniority that I don’t have to worry about a layoff, but a 5% pay cut and two days a month of forced, unpaid leave could cost her 15% of her $2,463 monthly salary. She has the cut calculated to the penny--$369.44 a month.

To help employees cope with personal and financial problems that might affect their work, the state has a contract with an Oakland-based firm, Occupational Health Services Inc., to provide counseling services.

“In the last couple of weeks, there have been an increased number of referrals,” said Valencia Chen, manager of program services for the company. Some of that could be from the uncertainties caused by the state’s budget problems, she said. Because of complex Civil Service rules, it could take as long as six months to implement any layoffs required by a new state budget, said David J. Tirapelle, director of the Department of Personnel Administration. Not all agencies of government will be affected equally. The departments of Transportation, Motor Vehicles and Water Resources, for example, have special funds for dedicated purposes and are not likely to require layoffs during the current fiscal year that began July 1. The California State University and University of California systems have separate budget-cutting plans that affect 173,000 state workers.

The impact is likely to be hardest felt by new employees, usually at the low end of the pay scale.

“I’m prepared for this,” said Le Morgan, regional manager in Los Angeles for the Department of Transportation whose paycheck was held up Monday. “But my main concern is for the people who work for me. . . . They’re living from payday to payday.”