Governor Jerry Brown Orders Hiring Freeze: Let's Hope it's Not as Fake as 'Freezes' where Arnold and Gray Davis Hired Like Madmen

Governor Jerry Brown Orders Hiring Freeze: Let's Hope it's Not as Fake as "Freezes" where Arnold and Gray Davis Hired Like Madmen

By Jill Stewart Tue., Feb. 15 2011 at 3:46 PM

Can tough-talking Jerry Brown stop even a single hire during his "hiring freeze"?

Today's breathless press release states that California Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered a massive state hiring freeze. Will that be anything like Gov. Gray Davis' utterly fake freeze, during which tens of thousands of state employees were hired? Or Gov. Arnold Schwarenegger's false freeze, during which he allowed a pile-on of tens of thousands more government workers?

For the truth, Californians must ask Ken Mandler, the sole guy in Sacramento who religiously follows the actual hirings -- by position. What Mandler always finds: a Sacramento "hiring freeze" is as real as wood nymphs and cold fusion.

If Brown really manages to stop hiring in Sacramento, it will be a miracle. Neither of the other guys had the cojones to do it, following their identical announcements.

Brown's press release today states:

"We have a $25 billion deficit, and we must do everything possible to save money and make government leaner and more efficient," Brown said. The hiring freeze is comprehensive, applying to vacant, seasonal and full and part-time positions. It prohibits hiring outside contractors to compensate for the hiring freeze, converting part-time positions into full-time positions and transferring employees between agencies and departments. This action is part of Brown's efforts to save money this fiscal year and to cut $363 million in operational costs next fiscal year. "The hiring freeze will be in effect until agencies and departments prove that they can achieve these savings," Brown said.

Poor guy -- Jerry Brown's going to get those sneaky, bloated department heads and managers at like Health and Human Services, and the Department of Corrections, and the Department of Education, to prove they can achieve savings?

Good luck with that.

But if he doesn't pull it off -- if he doesn't become the first governor in memory to actually, truly, freeze the hiring in Sacramento, then the frighteningly unaffordable California state pension blob is going to keep growing -- with every single new state government hire Jerry Brown allows.

Longtime Republican consultant Jonathan Wilcox predicted, shortly before Brown was elected, that Brown would force his huge, rich, labor-union backers to join him in publicly questioning the unsupportable pensions owed to state workers.

California state workers pay only a tiny fraction into their retirement accounts but are then guaranteed the equivalent of $1 million for a low-skilled state clerk (and much greater riches for all those earning more than $100,000.),

And, moreover, California state workers can retire in their 50s, at the height of their productivity and ability.

Which is insane, nuts and whack.

So, is Jerry telling the truth? Or pulling an Arnold?

Tags:

Arnold Schwarzenegger, budget cuts, California state budget, Gray Davis, hiring freeze, Jerry Brown

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recycling cell phones

Does the Weekly fact-check anymore or can Stewart write whatever she wants without any fear of retribution?

CrackerBoyX

Public employee unions own this guy. It's really too bad. I don't get these unions. They already work for the government and can't be fired. The corrupt circle of money has union members filling politician's campaign coffers. They get elected, then vote for more money for unionized public employee pay, benefits and pensions. If this is not abject corruption, I don't know what is.

"My kingdom for a Pension!"

If Brown were telling the truth, he'd be talking about cuts not taxes, and reducing union pensions not school budgets. He's be laying off employees, not flirting with a hiring freeze years after the recession started and most employers have allready shaved payrolls.

He would be doing he was elected to do --without punting to the voters who he ignores when he feels like it (3 strikes, prop 8, death penalty, Prop 13 etc).

He'd take on UC profs who retire at 50--50! --from their tortorous job, and who oh so graciously showed their comitment to higher ed by proposing a "sacrifice" of the first magnitude--raising tuition so they can retire at 55. "Pass me a grape, Chancellor, a non-tenured prof approaches."

He'd tell the unions that people with no paycheck, cut paychecks, health acre bills and back taxes should not be contributing to pensions of state workers who contribute next to nothing to their own pensions.

He'd do what the billionaire businesswoman he maligned would have started to do by now. Saving the state from unionized locusts who he let loose in 1978 by signing the Dill Act allowing state employees to unionize.

Saving the state from the unions that helped him make Oakland even worse than it was.

But perhaps I am just envious: I have to pay for my own pension and health benefits and cannot retire even now at age 58.