Dave is looking to fix many of the problems ACSS members have experienced for decades. They can't be quick fixes; but they can be quickly addressed ... and that's what he's doing.

Gilb came to the Board Meeting to show he really does care about excluded employee issues. He came to answer questions. He came to hear our complaints and to seek solutions that will satisfy our members and this administration. Mainly, he came to listen.

"DPA is not a funding agency," Gilb said. "I have to march over to the Department of Finance and ask for money ... and I've done that. The Schwarzenegger administration is a data-driven administration and makes decisions based on appropriate supporting data.

"As you know this year we did a survey. It provided us with objective data that showed there is a 15 to 30 percent lag in salaries from some of our public sector counterparts, making it difficult to recruit and retain the best people," he admitted candidly. "This data was instrumental in getting the money released in the budget [for excluded employees] because Gov. Schwarzenegger pays attention to objective data."

Vacancy rates in some classifications, he explained, are unacceptable and they're only going to get worse because "... in five years, 35 percent of the state workforce will be gone and services for the citizens of California won't be there if we don't recruit new people, qualified people," Gilb said.

Gilb had barely begun speaking when ACSS members started lining up at the microphone to ask questions of the DPA director. Gilb, however, seemed unfazed by this and continued his presentation -- without notes and without an associate to help him with numbers or answers -- until he had said what he came to say.

When the questions started coming at him, many very specific to the member's job classification or upside-down salary structure, Dave didn't wince once. He was poised and professional, never "promising" to get back to the member, but telling each person that if they would give Bonnie Morris or Mitch Semer the specifics of their personal situation, he would be glad to look at them all.

Gilb gave our ACSS assemblage more than just a fine presentation. He gave each person hope that their situation would be addressed and that the long-standing environment of ignoring excluded employees' salaries and issues has come to an end.

"Anything ACSS can do to help us look at classifications" and make appropriate recommendations, DPA is willing and eager to hear them, he said.

In discussing some of the egregious compaction problems and those of recruiting and retaining the best people, Dave said: "I've been a state employee for 33 years and the state has been good to me. I want it to be good to those who follow me. I'm looking for solutions to these problems."

So is ACSS.

We will be working very closely with DPA, and Director Gilb, to solve these and other problems related to excluded employees' careers and compensation. And that IS a promise from ACSS.

You can read more about Dave Gilb's presentation in the next issue of Today's Supervisor