California: More than 200,000 State Employees Begin Furlough Fridays, Without Pay

February 7th, 2009

Via: AP:

California’s first-ever furloughs began Friday with more than 200,000 state workers expected to stay home without pay amid the state’s fiscal crisis.

Among the offices forced to close Friday were the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Consumer Affairs. The governor’s Office of Emergency Services also was dark as part of the cash-saving move ordered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Critical and revenue-generating agencies remained open, including fire stations, parks and employment centers that process unemployment insurance claims. California’s unemployment rate is 9.3 percent, a 15-year high.

At the state Department of Transportation, a handful of engineers showed up to work without pay because they didn’t want to get behind on projects they said were important to public safety.

Stan Slavin, an electrical engineer working on a traffic project in the San Francisco Bay area, said his partners at local agencies will be on the job so he was, too.

State agencies scrambled in the days before the furloughs took effect to avoid confusion for the public, such as people trying to register vehicles or obtain professional licenses.

Posted in Collapse, Economy | Top Of Page

One Response to “California: More than 200,000 State Employees Begin Furlough Fridays, Without Pay”

  1. Ann says:
    February 8, 2009 at 2:43 am

    How long until the state devolves into the Soviet “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us” model?

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