Thursday, January 08, 2009

Damn Lazy State Workers

A funny thing happens when you lay off state workers that, apparently, nobody ever counts on.

This.

EDD, being a general fund program, will have been directed by the governor's office to put forward a plan to lay off up to 20% of its staff. EDD will also be subject to the two day per month employee furlough.

Which means that, as things stand, the issues with EDD's responsiveness that are being called out in the article will do nothing but get worse.

Basically, what it comes down to is that if you need California state services, particularly those geared towards the poor, disabled, elderly or children, you're pretty much SOL.

If, however, you're doing pretty well, financially, already, you've got nothing to fear.

As usual, the govahnator has your back.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Talk about a Catch 22. Yuck.

I called my assigned unemployment "case worker" here in Utah for the first time and got her voice mail. It literally said, "Hi, this is Jennifer. I'm not available at the moment. Don't leave a message because I won't call you back."

Dawn Fortune said...

And you all elected this paragon of intillectual excellence? Or was it because his wife is a Kennedy? Good grief. I say cut the governor's paycheck, and that of every department head (like commissioner level people) in half and that should save some. What inane bullshit.

dolphyngyrl said...

Dawn, DUDE! He's, you know, THE TERMINATOR! How could he NOT get elected in California?

(I didn't vote for him, btw. I voted for the porn star.)

Also, he doesn't collect a paycheck for being governor.

And I'm starting to think that maybe the legislators shoudln't, either. Didn't that position used to be directly civil service? As in "good luck, cause you're not getting paid to do this"?

Anonymous said...

The trick is to not call the State if you don't have to. I got through two recent bouts of unemployment without having to call them once. They called me twice. I did have to drive to Sacramento to straighten out my real estate license.

I voted for the porn star too just because I was pissed about the whole process and how much it cost the State of California. And keep in mind, he replaced Gray Davis who was zoomed by the asshats at Enron, damage that is affecting Californians for years to come. Those contracts should all be voided. The fact that Gray Davis was our Governor was embarrassing but neither party trotted out a better choice. As much as I hated the guy, I voted against the recall.

Unfortunately, he's doing what has to be done, which is raising taxes and cutting expenses. The fact that the California Republican Party is fighting him tooth and nail on every tax proposal is ignorant. You know I like the guy, even though I was expecting to hate him. I just wish the rest of the State would get in step with him, I think if left to his own devices he could fix the problems.

The State Workers have an image problem. When they address that, then the general public will get behind them. If you don't deal with the State regularly, you get crap like I did from the DRE and don't get to a lady like the one I did who solves problems. You don't see the things that go on behind the scenes. You see a freeway that's taking forever to be fixed. You know what's orange and sleeps six. You're unemployed and get cut off trying to get the services you need and you may not realize that the problem isn't lazy State Workers, it's underfunded Departments, thanks to the California Republican Party.

If I smoked I'd need one.

dolphyngyrl said...

The funny thing is that, generally, I like the guy, too. I don't think he has all the answers. I think he's got some really good answers that nobody wants to listen to. But I also think that he has no concept of how state offices work, and, therefore, no idea how to cut costs within that frame without sacrificing services.

I also think that he comes too much from the perspective of "having" to be able to truly affect change within the state's budget or for the economy.