[muawiyah]

public employee salaries are subject to laws ~ so, unless you want to just hand over determination of salaries to Governors and Presidents with no legislative oversight, you need to do something other than change rates of pay.

Furloughs do the job of cutting the expense without getting into a separation of powers dispute.

[Hebrews 11:6]

Interesting concept—thanks for your response. So, it would take concerted action by both the legislative and executive branches which avoiding judicial intervention. Not very likely....