The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • 3

Thursday July 16 2009 I The Sacramento Bee A3 THE BUZZ CAMPAIGN WATCH IOUs: DAY 14 The numbers are In: California could see an increase of nearly $14 billion per year in state revenues if it were to legalize marijuana the state Board of Equalization says Assembly Bill 390 would impose not only sales taxes but a $50 per ounce fee on marijuana sales which would be licensed by the state much as alcoholic beverages are regulated San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom who faces significant challenges to gaining political traction in Southern California has named state Sen Alex Padilla a former Los Angeles city councilman to chair his 2010 gubernatorial campaign This may boost Newsom among Latino voters and give him some extra reach in the LA media market where the San Francisco mayor lags in name recognition behind likely Democratic candidate Jerry Brown The California Democratic Party has filed a complaint against Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger' alleging the budget ad now airing violates new campaign finance regulations The new rules say you can't spend money that you raised for a ballot measure unless the ad is related to a real or potential ballot measure Hey this is California One is sure to pop up soon enough CAPITOLBCAHFORNIA if 'mt sj' (iis ujusvrjfr s-vs ranste mmrainig mbI HIS SHAKE-UP AIMS TO CALM CONTROVERSY boards set out to put this one to rest He also defended his decision to order furloughs and contract cuts in nursing board staffing despite the fact that the board is funded through licensing fees paid by nurses Bob Stem executive director of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles said governors usually take a approach and avoid wholesale changes on state boards But Dan director of the Un-ruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California said removal of four nursing board members and filling of two vacancies provided a political in demonstrating his reaction to a crisis one thing to fire nameless faceless bureaucrats But people have an innate sense of the importance of a good and trustworthy he said It is the second controversy the governor has faced involving a medical licensing board In 2007 and 2008 a Sacramento Bee investigation revealed the state Board of Chiropractic Examiners -whose seven Schwarzenegger appointees included two friends from his BOARD I Page At He promised that the newly constituted board would decisively when a abrupt shake-up of the panel came after the Los Angeles Times and the nonprofit ProPub-lica organization reported that problem nurses continued working as the board took an average of three years and five njonths to investigate misconduct complaints Schwarzenegger no stranger to controversies involving medical By Peter Hecht phechtsacbeecom Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger moved Wednesday to head off a burgeoning controversy over the failure of a state nursing board to promptly weed out nurses accused of misconduct including drug theft violence and medical incompetence Upon swearing in sue new members of the state Board of Registered Nursing the governor vowed a concerted effort to the people of Califor 1 -TTDT55- Phil Angelides former state treasurer will co-chair a panel with former Rep Bill Thomas wV 'A -f 4 '3ST (Jn jt Xifr a oJ- Mission targets roots of crisis 2 FROM STATE TO LEAD PROBE OF FISCAL COLLAPSE hJmrMn Wef i try Cl biV The State Worker JON ORTIZ 1 ls jortizsacbeecom Ire grows over pay furloughs Her speech last week used four times and just once but that was enough to spark reports that Yvonne Walker president of Service Employees International Union Local 1000 had called for a strike vote She but the speech did mark a new and tougher stance by the local and a perilous turn for the biggest public employee union week the Local 1000 council voted unanimously to authorize concerted actions up to and including a strike if Walker said in the speech webcast to SEIU members last Thursday Catch that? actions up to and including a Walker made her speech the same day that this column reported Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger wants a 5 percent across-the-board pay cut on top of the thrice-monthly -he has ordered to narrow the $263 billion budget gap The furloughs equal roughly a 15 percent reduction in state pay and save the payroll about $13 billion over 12 months If lawmakers go along with the added pay cut the governor could add a fourth Furlough Friday The news racheted up angst and anger among many of public servants Soon after Thursday speech an anonymous text message circulated encouraging a sickout on the following Wednesday The state quickly fired off memos reminding employees that any kind of strike action violates the terms of their contracts which remain in effect even though nearly all have expired (The so-called keep Schwarzenegger from furloughing them because a judge said the financial crisis gives him emergency authority to order the unpaid days off The unions are challenging that in court) SEIU and other unions said they backing any independent and the movement if there really was one fizzled The episode hints at how difficult it may be for the SEIU to corral the 90000 employees it covers Labor actions often depend on anger for fuel but a combustible resource hard to gauge maintain and manage And the cohesion would take a big hit if it called for any action and workers follow through A state employee strike vote is particularly risky because asking members whether they have the faith in their leadership to risk breaking the rules But even if little support for that the union still could order smaller targeted actions like brief walkouts at specific locations There are plenty of ways for an angry union to send a message RUSSEL A DANIELS Associated Press University of California employees rally at the San Francisco campus Tuesday against pay cuts and furloughs which were approved Wednesday by the Board of Regents finance committee Chancellors also laid out specific cuts for their campuses UC cutbacks clear regent hurdle FULL BOARD BACKING EXPECTED TODAY FOR FURLOUGHS PAY CUT By Jim Wasserman jwassermansacbeecom Democratic former state Treasurer Phil Angelides and Republican former Rep Bill Thomas of Bakersfield were named Wednesday to co-chair a national commission probing what caused the financial meltdown that has cost thousands of Americans their homes and retirement savings Angelides treasurer frbm 1999 through 2007 and an unsuccessful 2006 gubernatorial challenger to Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a telephone conversation Wednesday The charge is very direct: to undertake a thorough Inquiry to find the facts about why our financial system melted down and leave no stone Angelides 56 a Sacramento native who currently chairs a Los Angeles-based investment fund for rental housing said the 10-member Financial Crisis Inquiry aim is to avoid this kind of calamity in the i In a statement announcing the appointments Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation of why so many people lost their homes their savings and their hard-earned The commission is modeled on the 1930s Pecora Commission which probed the roots of the 1929 stock market crash and led to creation of the US Securities and Exchange Commission i The new commission will have subpoena power and a $5 million budget to complete its work by Dec 15 2010 Members include six Democrats and four Republicans from the public and private sectors Angelides said the commission will investigate the role of fraud at the heart of the financial meltdown including the securitization that spread mortgage risks to global investors Lt Gov John Garamendi who sits on the UC Board of Regents listens Wednesday to details of how the system will deal with its estimated $813 million deficit PROPOSED FURLOUGHPAY CUT PLAN FOR UC The UC finance committee approved a plan Wednesday to furlough employees The number of unpaid days off would vary depending to how much workers make EQUIVALENT SALARY REDUCTION By Laurel Rosenhall lrosenhallsacbeecom The impact of the fiscal crisis on the University of California came into focus Wednesday as the governing Board of Regents preliminarily approved sweeping employee pay cuts and chancellors detailed the services and programs slashing on their campuses The UC committee on finance approved President Mark Yud-ofs plan for furloughing employees during one year beginning in September a cut that will close part of UCs $813 million deficit The plan takes a sliding scale approach that cuts pay between 4 percent and 10 percent according to salaries The full Board of Regents is expected to approve the plan today It calls for the vast majority of UCs 180000 employees to take unpaid days off the exact number of days will vary by pay level but gives workers and their supervisors flexibility to choose the dates Yudof has said he expects professors not to take furloughs on days they teach class But Mary Croughan a professor at UC San Francisco who chairs the statewide academic senate said the furloughs at UC should be similar to those at the Department of Motor Vehicles where go to get service and the doors are major point both the faculty and the staff made was to make the furlough days she said at the regents meeting in San Francisco It remains to be seen how the furloughs will affect students because the plan gives each campus alot oflee-way in implementing them And it exempts about a quarter of UC employees those whose salaries are covered by grants from the federal government or private industries Still UC professors warned regents Wednesday that the furloughs will AII Senior Management Group members would get only 10 furlough days regardless of their salary reduction ROBERT DORRELL rdorrellsacbee com Source University of California just think about what raises the tax base knowledge and the new wealth that knowledge Professors and UCs other non-unionized employees will take the furloughs without putting up much of a fight But the system will have to negotiate the furloughs with more than a dozen labor unions that represent other UC workers Scores of workers from at least three labor unions protested the furlough plan at meeting CITS I PageA4 have dire consequences on university quality Faculty may leave for other schools that pay better they said and once the top-flight professors leave the best students will follow Sandra Faber a professor of astronomy at UC Santa Cruz said the state is hurting its economic recovery by taking UC funds The university is the most powerful economic engine in the said Faber who presented a letter signed by more than 300 distinguished UC scientists you believe that Call The Bee Jim Wasser-l man (916) 321-1102 The Associated Press contributed tothisreport Call The Jon Ortiz (916) 321-1043 Read his blog The State Worker at sacbeecomblogs 'JtmiiMtiifVYv ft1 tub jyn sv 4V IX.