California taxpayers should pay careful attention to the scheme orchestrated by the Newsom administration to further enrich his political cronies at the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
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Under California law, the state of California is required to conduct compensation studies in order to determine the appropriateness of general raises for public employees.
Prior to this year, the last publicly released compensation study for California’s prison guards was from 2013. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office that compensation study determined “that state correctional officers were compensation 40.2% above their local government counterparts and 28.1% above their federal government counterparts.”
Ever since, the state has dragged its feet in completing and referencing these legally required studies.
In 2018, Gavin Newsom was elected governor with the support of the CCPOA.
In 2020, the CCPOA ousted one of its most prominent critics in the California Legislature, Republican Sen. John Moorlach, helping to elect compliant Democrat Dave Min.
In 2021, the CCPOA dumped millions to defend him from recall. That same year, over the objections of the LAO pointing out the lack of a compensation study, the California Legislature, including Min, uncritically voted to give the CCPOA a lucrative new contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
That contract is now up.
The LAO is raising alarm bells once again about how the state is trying to justify a lucrative new contract for the CCPOA.
For one, the state’s HR department has concocted a deliberately misleading compensation study using different methodology and comparison groups designed to make the CCPOA-represented prison guards look underpaid.
The LAO notes a number of problems with the Newsom administration’s compensation study. It deliberately compared the pay of prison guards to law enforcement employees in high cost-of-living counties where few prison guards actually work and even two counties where zero prison guards work.
The LAO also notes the study conveniently omitted overtime pay, “which is equivalent to roughly 24 percent of gross regular pay in 2022,” and “mischaracterizes the value of pension and retiree health benefits.”
For these reasons and more, the LAO is advising the Legislature not to even reference the study.
The LAO brings to light other very useful information. Like the fact that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has to turn away more than 90% of qualified applicants for the prison guard academy, which indicates that at current levels of compensation there are more than enough people willing to do the job. No general raises needed.
The LAO also notes that compared to 2013, “the share of state correctional officer positions that are vacant” has also gone down. This, too, indicates there’s no actual problem bringing prison guards on to the job.
And as for handwaving from the CCPOA about retention problems, the LAO points out “the average Unit 6 member is younger today than they were in 2013. To some extent, this may reflect recent rates of retirement.”
Despite this, the Newsom administration wants to reward his cronies at CCPOA.
This is yet another test voters should use to gauge who in the Legislature is truly representing them and who is willing to play political games over public service.
There is no reason to throw more money at CCPOA. None.
For comparison, consider this question from watchdog group Govern for California: “Do our elected state officials really believe that California should spend twice as much on the compensation and benefits of 64,937 [correctional] employees as it spends on the 450,000 students served by California State University?”
Click here to read the ful article in the Orange County Register
Another tactic to divide the crowds of society and pit them against each other! Communism to prevail and take over. What don’t you get of this sickness to RULE and SUPPRESS!!
Of course the lawmakers will as a portion of the “pay to work” racket will get kicked right back to the DNC side of the campaign donations. A politician very seldom does ANYTHING for the serfs unless there is a benefit to them.
And the highest CALPERS Pension is 551k per year! The taxpayers are fools to let the public employee unions run the government. It is Out of Control.