Our View: Sacramento says more for ours, less for you

There's something insufferably arrogant about government cutting services and raising taxes, while increasing its own pay.

We're not talking about a lot of money, as multibillion dollar budgets (and deficits) go. Nevertheless, we suspect most taxpayers would be irked to find that during the same period their legislative leaders were burdening them with $12.5 billion in additional car, sales and income taxes, and cutting spending on education, health and welfare, these same lawmakers increased pay for many of their own staff.

Belt-tightening by the governor this year also reduced pay of 200,000-plus state employees nearly 15 percent by imposing unpaid three-day-a-month furloughs. But an investigation by the Associated Press reported Tuesday in the Register found that during the first six months of the year at least 87 Assembly staff members received raises totaling more than $430,000 on an annualized basis.

In the Assembly, 39 employees received pay increases of 10 percent or more, including 15 with increases of 20 percent or more. In the Senate, seven of the nine receiving raises increased by 10 percent or more. The AP reported five Assembly staffers and two Senate staffers making $100,000 a year or more got pay raises. About 7 percent of the Assembly's 1,206 employees received raises, a spokeswoman for Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, confirmed.

If it weren't offensive enough that so many of the people staffing the offices of legislators seem to be playing by different rules while raising taxes and cutting services, the situation is aggravated by the fact that their pay raises are nearly hidden from public view.

Unlike other state agencies, the Legislature isn't subject to the California Public Records Act, which requires disclosure of how tax money is spent. Instead, lawmakers' office budgets are governed by the Legislative Open Records Act, which makes public access more difficult.

It gets worse. "Both houses of the Legislature refused the AP's request to make the payroll records available electronically," the Associated Press reported. Moreover, legislative spending details don't appear in the annual budget signed by the governor, as do other state agencies' and departments'. That means, according to the AP, "there is no way to cross-check the information the Legislature provides."

Legislative spokesmen said some raises were approved because staffers took on added responsibilities. We imagine a few of the 200,000 state employees whose pay was cut may have taken on more work, too — as have countless workers in the private sector — without getting pay raises. Overall, the Assembly's payroll decreased $1.3 million from a year ago, the AP reported, but there are 15 fewer people on staff — and a lot of those still on the payroll are being paid more than last year.

The Legislature is tone-deaf to the belt-tightening it has imposed on others. This self-serving arrogance is at the root of the horrific budget mess in Sacramento. No wonder public polls show legislators' favorable rating at rock-bottom.