Workers Wonder Where Their Next Paycheck Is Coming From

Barbara Moore wonders how she will pay for her home remodeling project. Troy Swauger may cancel a birthday trip to Reno. And Leon Page figures he will be living off Top Ramen noodles for a while.

These and other calculations cluttered the minds of state workers Tuesday as they came to grips with an unprecedented court ruling that could deprive them of their paychecks--at least temporarily.

Siding with irate taxpayers, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien ruled that the state lacks authority to pay workers until a budget agreement is signed into law or until an emergency appropriation is made.

O’Brien said state workers could be paid minimum wage for time logged during the first three weeks of July, but might not be compensated for their labor beginning today.

If they decide to work anyway, O’Brien wrote, they “would simply be volunteers.”

As news of the ruling spread, state offices from San Diego to Eureka buzzed with a mixture of emotions, from confusion to minor panic to a ho-hum assumption that all will be well in the end.

Indeed, 1998 does not mark the first year that state workers--and their wages--have been snared in a budget standoff. In 1992, when California went without a budget for two months, the state paid its workers with IOUs, which were honored by banks and credit unions until a spending plan was hammered out.

On Tuesday, many veteran workers predicted confidently that an appeal--expected to be filed today by employee unions and state Controller Kathleen Connell--would quickly restore their right to collect a paycheck.

But some expressed a new anxiety over being caught in the middle of budget politics. And more than a few declared themselves annoyed.

Wesley Carr, a state toxicologist, said he was particularly concerned about the judge’s use of the term “volunteers,” fearing that it could lay the foundation for no back pay.

“That term is very worrisome,” Carr said. “Does that mean we have no anticipation of getting paid even once they get a budget passed?”

Carr said he will show up for work anyway, and spokesmen for a variety of state agencies--including parks and prisons--issued assurances that all will be business as usual today.

At the California Assn. of Highway Patrolmen, President Mark Muscardini expressed confidence that officers would “put public safety first and their paycheck second.” Indeed, some state workers--such as prison guards and peace officers--can be disciplined for not showing up.

But among the rank and file, there was lots of frustration--and some loud grumbling.

“My personal deal is that without payment, things would grind to a halt,” said John Gillespie, a Department of Motor Vehicles employee in El Centro. “We might as well file unemployment and start looking for another job.”

At the Assn. of California State Attorneys, the phone was ringing off the hook with calls from members wondering whether to show up for work.

“We blame the governor for this mess,” executive assistant Chris Voight said. “He’s making an outrageous budget demand [a tax cut spread over several years] when he’s not even going to be governor anymore. . . . People are livid.”

Sour relations between state workers and Gov. Pete Wilson stem in part from most employees going without a salary increase for more than three years--as opposed to the large raises top state officials got recently--and the governor’s insistence on Civil Service changes.

Drew Mendelson, a spokesman for the California State Employees Assn., which represents 85,000 state workers, said union lawyers were still reviewing the judge’s order and puzzling over its implications.

But he said that in no case should employees be expected to show up for work and not ultimately be paid.

“We expect anyone who is owed money by the state because they have worked to be paid,” Mendelson said, and “we will fight for that.”

Affected by the ruling are 210,000 full-time Civil Service employees, earning an average monthly paycheck of about $3,580. When seasonal and part-time workers are included, the number rises to about 250,000.

Most workers are paid once a month. Because their checks typically come near the first of the month, any stop in payment stemming from O’Brien’s ruling won’t be felt immediately.

But many are already fretting about financial consequences, anticipating the worst.

Derek Gammon, a scientist at the California Environmental Protection Agency, worries about the $930 he just spent on airfare to a pesticide conference this weekend, a trip he is covering by dipping into his savings.

“I’m forking out all this money, and it looks like I’m not getting any pay to help defray the cost,” Gammon said.

“We’ve already received a 5% cutback [in salaries] when the economy was bad and now, when the state economy is supposedly bouncing along, no one is thinking about the state workers,” Gammon added. “If they are trying to get people to leave state government, this is a good way to go about it.”

A few workers offered an optimistic perspective, concluding that the court ruling might be a good thing--a way to increase pressure and bring about a budget deal.

Among them was Page, a legislative coordinator for a state agency, who said he would willingly eat Top Ramen if the judge’s ruling “puts some fire under the Legislature” and ends the budget standoff.

“We’ve been living in Disneyland, floating around without any consequence to our actions,” Page said of the budget stalemate. “So to the extent that this is a consequence, then it’s probably a good thing.”

Times staff writers Dave Lesher and Max Vanzi contributed to this story.