Money and the State of California: Consider Nero

Okay, somebody with accounting skill, I have an assignment for you:

1) Please research the salaries of executives and administrators employed by the state of California.

2) Determine the number of salaries over $100,000 a year (do not include benefits, only taxable gross pay).

3) Determine the number of salaries over $250,000 a year (following the same criteria as in item 2 above).

4) Hypothetically "take" $10,000 a year from the employees in item 2 and $20,000 a year from the employees in item 3.

5) Add up the dollar amounts from the "take". Multiply by 3 (as in "we could institute these cuts over a three year period.")

6) Acquire the number amount of the budget deficit faced by the state of California.

7) Compare the sum of the "take" with the deficit.

8) If the sum of the "take" is greater than the deficit, open a savings account for the state, change the hypothetical "take" to a real one, and sock the surplus money away for a rainy day.

9) If the sum of the "take" is less than the deficit, slash $30,000 a year from salaries above $250,000 a year and keep cutting by five-thousands toward $100,000 until the problem is solved.

10) Restructure state spending policies so that expense budgets do not depend on the previous year's spending; state departments should not be forced to spend money unnecessarily just so they can receive the same amount of funding in the following year.

Cutting state services, education and health care should never be considered as options. If Rome is burning, first: take away Nero's fiddle. Next: fight the fire with the biggest hoses.