Wilson Attacks Davis for Pay-Cut Stand

Gov. Pete Wilson accused state Controller Gray Davis on Friday of aggravating the state budget problem by trying to “curry favor” with public employee unions because of his possible race for the U.S. Senate next year.

Wilson said the Democratic controller’s actions in rejecting his efforts to impose a 5% pay cut on 25,000 supervisors and force state workers to pay an average of $50 for health and dental insurance costs was harming an “already very, very difficult” budget situation.

Davis, in a statement released by his office, said he was “not going to engage in name calling.” Davis again asserted that his lawyers advised him “that the state does not currently have the legal authority to reduce public employee salaries by 5%.”

Wilson, reacting to the announcement on Thursday by Treasurer Kathleen Brown that tax collections were 6.4% below budget projections in September, also said the drop-off in revenues could prompt a new round of budget cuts when the Legislature returns to the Capitol in January.

“I don’t think it is time for anybody to panic, but obviously I’m concerned,” the Republican governor told reporters during an informal news conference in his office after an awards ceremony.

Wilson criticized the unions for “shoddy tactics” and “doing everything possible to frustrate” implementation of the budget agreement he reached with Democratic lawmakers in July.

The budget agreement, designed to close a $14.3-billion deficit, did not specify 5% pay cuts, but it did require Wilson to trim more than $350 million in personnel costs from the state payroll. The proposal for across-the-board pay cuts was designed to offset the need for massive layoffs.

Wilson and his political staff voluntarily took 5% pay cuts in July, but his efforts to impose pay cuts on other state employees have been blocked by Davis. The Wilson Administration has gone to court in an effort to force Davis to implement the governor’s budget actions.

The governor told reporters that the unions, by refusing to go along with the pay cut, will make the budget problem “much worse.”

“The people who will suffer the most will be the junior members of the state employees service, because they don’t have seniority . . . they’ll lose 100% of their pay (through mandatory layoffs), and I think that’s grossly unfair,” Wilson said.

Wilson said the unions “have reached Gray Davis and gotten him to cause, at least temporarily, the kind of thing that is aggravating the budget gap that we closed.”

Perry Kenny, head of the Civil Service division of the California State Employees’ Assn., the largest of the state employee unions, said of Wilson’s comments: “We think he is throwing a tantrum because he isn’t getting his own way.”

State employees say Wilson’s hiring freeze has already produced more than 21,000 job vacancies in state Civil Service. They argue that when the job vacancies are added to an estimated 10,000 retirements, it means the state has already saved roughly $1 billion in payroll costs, making pay cuts and other actions, like layoffs, unnecessary.