CalPERS would like you to believe it is, which is why its Health Benefits Committee is proposing that all state employees pay a lot more for office visits, emergency room visits, prescriptions, premiums, and other out-of-pocket expenses beginning Jan. 1, 2008.

ACSS is actively opposing CalPERS’ proposed increases, not because we don’t understand that costs are rising. But why are they rising so much faster than our salaries, faster than the cost of living, faster and higher than many of our members can afford?

Right now, large numbers of excluded employees in civil service are contemplating retirement. They are doing so because their careers have been stalled, just like their salaries. They are holding on hoping for a meaningful raise that will make them feel more valued – and rewarded – as state employees and, ultimately, equate into a more meaningful retirement package. Making them pay more for their health care coverage may be the final blow that pushes these leaders out the door.

What is becoming apparent is that the state does not want to give more, but wants to take more from their management team. Appropriate salary increases, commensurate with those given by other government entities and private companies, remain elusive in state employment while the state demands that its employees pay more for their own health care and for the care of their families as well.

Forcing these state leaders to retire from public service is not the answer to the state’s fiscal crunch. Neither is ignoring their depressed salary structure while rank-and-file employees enjoy bargained raises, overtime pay and benefit enhancements.

It is becoming ever more evident that in state service once a manager or supervisor retires the rank and file will not step up and take a promotion. Why? Because rank-and-file employees are getting paid the same or more than their supervisor without the headaches of management. This is leaving vacancies, lots and lots of vacancies, in every department throughout the state. And it’s getting worse every month.

ACSS knows the state is not prepared for this mass exodus. The necessary succession planning that should have been crafted and carried out for the last decade is practically nonexistent, and the state can't even fill the vacancies that exist now, let alone what is going to happen in the next couple of years.

Is anyone besides ACSS really looking at this issue?
It is clear that now is not the best time to take more money out of the paychecks of state excluded employees. If adjustments need to be made to offset spiraling health care costs, why not wait until salaries have been raised to balance these additional expenses?

If the state really wants to create a management crisis for every department and every citizen in California, this is the way to do it!

ACSS stands against these cost increases, and against the state’s callous disregard for its excluded employees’ pocketbooks.

To this administration I say: Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it!