Unholy Alliances In Sacramento
In my last post, I reported that the State of California is spending $631 billion in the current fiscal year (July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023). Today we’ll explore one of the agencies spending that money.
$24 billion is going to prisons. The largest share of that spending is $7 billion of salaries for 65,000 employees attending to 96,000 inmates. The second largest is $4 billion for employee benefits.
California’s prison employees have long been the highest paid in the nation, and by a large margin. But that didn’t stop lawmakers from granting them multiple salary increases over the last decade, the most recent being a $500 million per year boost. In so doing, lawmakers didn’t even follow state law requiring comparison studies before granting raises.
Taxpayers write the checks but the burden of excessive spending on prison employee compensation falls on social services, universities, courts, parks and other discretionary programs that get less whenever prison employees get more. Yet the unwarranted salary increase passed without a single “no” vote from a State Assembly that characterizes itself as among the most progressive in the country. That sort of thing happens because of an unholy alliance that allows lawmakers to loudly signal virtue to constituents while quietly doing the bidding of special interests.
For example, search the website of this legislator — who characterizes himself as among the most progressive members of the legislature — for any disclosure about his vote for that salary increase or a budget diverting $24 billion from programs to prisons. I found none. That’s because he knows that voters pay attention to what he says while special interests pay attention to what he does. The last thing he wants voters to know is that he diverts money from programs to prisons, while the first thing he wants prison employee unions to know is that he won’t stand in their way.
Don’t blame prison employee unions. They’re just doing their jobs, which is to maximize compensation for their members. Blame lawmakers who don’t walk their talk.