UPI:
SACRAMENTO, June 27 (UPI) -- Two members of the California Senate have stiff-armed a request by the body's leader that all members voluntarily cut their salaries.
While their colleagues agreed to accepting a smaller paycheck during the current economic hard times, one of the two holdouts says his salary is no one else's business but his own and the other says the giveback is "gimmicky," the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
California legislators' salaries are determined by a state Citizens Compensation Commission. The base salary is $116,208 annually and lawmakers get $36,000 per year tax-free to cover living expenses in Sacramento.
With California looking for ways to cope with a $24 billion budget shortfall, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat, noted that most state workers are losing 9.2 percent of their compensation through unpaid furloughs, and he asked members to take a 5 percent pay cut for the fiscal year starting July 1. Some members took larger cuts, the Times said.
State Sen. Roderick Wright, a Democrat who represents Inglewood, told the newspaper he would not go along with the pay cut.
"What I get paid is personal," he said. "I don't discuss what I do personally."
State Sen. Roy Ashburn, a Republican from Bakersfield, noted that salaries are already scheduled to be cut by 18 percent for lawmakers elected in 2010 and beyond.
"I think anything else is trying to be gimmicky," Wright said.
1 comment:
Look these guys are getting kick backs and need all the money they can get so giving back money isn't in the cards. Voters can see the people they elect are only interested in themselves. When an audit is none you'll see how much money was stolen and wasted by these officials. Until California get officials that work for the people nothing will change.
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