Schwarzenegger gives lucrative board seats to ex-legislators and aides

As California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger orders steep salary cuts for most of the state workforce, some Sacramento players are doing much better by him. The governor has added state legislators and former political aides to the state payroll, with six-figure salaries. Their positions: plum posts on the same state boards and commissions that the governor crusaded to abolish a few years ago, calling them a waste of taxpayer money. Two GOP lawmakers who recently left office and have limited expertise in thorny employment issues have received jobs at the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. The panel met 12 times last year, and members are paid $128,109. "It's a soft landing spot for ex-elected officials who can make a good living while showing up 12 times a year," said Joel Fox, an antitax advocate who worked on the governor's aborted plan to shut down the boards. "The positions should be eliminated." Seats on state boards have long been awarded to lawmakers loyal to governors and legislative leaders. But Schwarzenegger made the most recent appointments just days after ordering 238,000 state workers to be furloughed two days a month or take an equivalent pay cut of about 9%. He also requested that the state payroll be reduced an additional 10%, including layoffs if necessary. "People were very disgusted and upset about it," said Sandie Luke, president of a Northern California council for the Service Employees International Union, Local 1000. The local represents 95,000 white-collar workers. She faulted the governor and his staff, saying: "It makes you wonder what their priorities are." Administration spokeswoman Rachel Cameron said lawmakers balked at abolishing the boards and folding their operations into other agencies, so the governor is left with no choice but to fill vacant seats. And she said the handling of unemployment appeals is more crucial than ever because of the sour economy. "The governor still has an obligation to continue to appoint the best qualified people to carry out this function," she said. The two posts went to Bonnie Garcia of Cathedral City and George Plescia of La Jolla. Schwarzenegger's office announced the appointments on New Year's Eve. A few weeks earlier Schwarzenegger had appointed state Sen. Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) to a $132,000 seat on a board that meets once a month to oversee trash disposal in the state. Migden lost her reelection bid and had to leave the Legislature at the end of November. The governor made the appointment even though he has twice recommended eliminating the trash board, most recently in his budget proposal for the next fiscal year, now pending before the Legislature. Still, his former scheduling director chairs the board, and two other former Democratic lawmakers were added to its payroll by legislative leaders late last year. Another panel, the state Personnel Board, includes onetime Schwarzenegger aides appointed earlier: Patricia Clarey, his former chief of staff, and Richard Costigan, former deputy chief of staff. The governor believes Garcia and Plescia are appropriate to their new positions, Cameron said. "They are both great public servants with a desire to continue serving the people of California in this new role," she said. Garcia once served as vice chairwoman of the Assembly Committee on Jobs and Economic Development, and she noted she has a college degree in workforce development. Plescia, who did not return calls for comment, does not list in the resume he submitted to the governor's office any previous work involving unemployment insurance or employment issues. Migden was appointed to the waste board, Cameron said, on the recommendation of Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), "because she has held several elected positions throughout local and state government for nearly 20 years and her background will serve well in this new role." And Migden defended her own qualifications. "Throughout my career in public service, I've looked for ways to solve problems," she said. In 2005, as part of his California Performance Review process, Schwarzenegger proposed eliminating 88 state boards and commissions, including those to which he has now appointed Garcia, Plescia and Migden. "No one paid by the state should make $100,000 a year for only meeting twice a month," he told legislators then. But in the face of widespread opposition from legislators and special interests, he dropped the idea. "I didn't want to stop all the other things I wanted to get done," he explained later. Sen. Jeff Denham (R-Atwater) introduced legislation recently that would abolish the waste board, calling it "a blatant rip-off of taxpayer dollars to the tune of $2 million a year," a reference to the board's cost. "This type of wasteful spending can no longer be tolerated in the face of massive and ever-increasing budget deficits," Denham said. Democrats, too, are giving the California Performance Review Report a second look in a new Assembly committee created to find waste and ways to be more efficient. Meanwhile, the $132,000 in annual salary that Migden will collect would be enough to cover 1,109 additional children in the state's Healthy Families program, which provides medical, dental and vision coverage to poor children and faces possible cutbacks because of the fiscal crisis. Her pay would also cover a cost-of-living increase for 523 families receiving state welfare grants. But Cameron noted that Migden and the other board appointees are subject to the same 10% salary cuts as mostother state employees. Plescia and Garcia's pay could eventually be cut to $115,298, while Migden's could drop to $118,000. Nancy Swindell, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 2620, which represents pharmacists, dietitians, psychologists and social workers employed by the state, said that is small comfort to the average state employee When Schwarzenegger "gives an outlandish salary to Bonnie Garcia and then cuts the salary for a state worker making just above minimum wage, where is the impact?" Swindell said. "It sends the message that the governor supports the elite and has no sympathy or empathy for the working person."