The State Worker: Column Extra: Jerry Brown administration talking about alternatives to 4/9.5 workweek

The State Worker

Chronicling civil-service life for California state workers

May 24, 2012

Column Extra: Jerry Brown administration talking about alternatives to 4/9.5 workweek

With just 400 to 450 words for our weekly State Worker column, most of what we learn each week never sees print. Column Extras give you some of the notes, the quotes and the observations that inform what's published.

Let's be clear: Gov. Jerry Brown's 4/9.5 furlough workweek isn't a done deal.

So said Julie Chapman, the Department of Personnel Administration's acting director, during an interview that informed today's State Worker column on the long-term cost of furloughs.

As the state's top labor negotiator, Chapman said Wednesday that she is "in discussions with the unions" about how to get the 5 percent pay reduction that Brown has proposed for all 214,000 state workers under his authority.

But the talks aren't strictly about the compressed workweek idea. Union representatives have suggested "many different things," Chapman said, although she wasn't specific.

"The administration is looking to get 5 percent savings, bottom line" on employee costs, Chapman said.

Brown's four-day workweek plan would cut state payroll about $839 million in fiscal 2012-13, the administration estimates, with about $401 million of that savings to the general fund.

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PHOTO: Gov. Jerry Brown / 2010 Sacramento Bee file, Hector Amezcua

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