Governor should stand firm on guard demands

MediaNews via CoCoTimes ^ | 10/14/8 | Editor

[SmithL]

EVIDENCE CONTINUES to mount that California's prison guards, who are threatening Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger with a recall, are grossly overpaid and that the governor must reject their push for more raises.

The latest data documenting the guards' rich salaries comes from a survey released last week by the state Department of Personnel Administration. It shows that California prison guards' base salary is 39 percent greater than the median of 10 neighboring or large states and the federal government. When most benefits are added in, California still pays its prison guards 29 percent more.

To put that in hard numbers, California prison guards, who need only a high school education, earn a base salary of up to $74,000 a year. In the states surveyed elsewhere in the country, the median top salary is $55,000.

It's not just the high cost of living in California. When the state prison guards are compared to similar workers in county jails and at federal prisons in the state, they still come out far ahead. The base salary of the state prison guards is still 20 percent higher, and 12 percent higher when benefits are taken into consideration.

(As an aside, the survey did not consider the cost of the health care provided to state workers once they retire because the state, like many governments across California and the country, is failing to set aside money for those benefits when they are earned — a growing liability that will cost the state billions of dollars in future years.)

So how did the prison guards end up with such a good deal? Blame former Gov. Gray Davis, who was scared of the guards' political muscle. Back in 2001, he negotiated a five-year contract that granted them a 34 percent pay hike between 2003 and 2006 at a time when other state workers received just 9 percent.

Fortunately, that contract expired in 2006. In 2007, talks with the Schwarzenegger administration broke down. The guards, unhappy with their treatment, have started laying the groundwork for a recall campaign to remove the governor from office.

Schwarzenegger needs to stand firm and the public needs to stand behind him. As the data shows, the guards are already overpaid. In these tough financial times, no one should be receiving automatic raises.

[jokar]

Stand Firm Gov.