Governor Newsom’s proposed budget includes a paragraph entitled “GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY AND COST SAVING MEASURES” but the measures mentioned there are a tiny fraction of the inefficiencies and costs added under Newsom. Eg, in the year Newsom took over from Jerry Brown, the Executive Branch hosted 211,000 jobs on whom the state spent $19.5 billion in salaries:
Since then Newsom has expanded staffing and salaries in favor of public sector unions that are also his political supporters with the result that the proposed budget shows staffing up 21% and salary spending up 44% to $28.1 billion per year.
Schedule 6 of the budget, which includes State employees outside the Executive branch, shows a sharp drop in efficiency. Eg, employees per 1,000 population is up 17% and General Fund expenditures per Capita are up 65%. Have public services per Capita improved at all — much less 65% — since Newsom took office?
| Another contributor to declining efficiency is rising spending on benefits for retired employees, another Newsom supporter. Eg, spending on Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) is up 74% and takes more than $4 billion per year from the General Fund. California’s OPEB benefits are multiples of those provided by other states. On top of that is pension spending of $14 billion, up 46%. The same issues handicap efficiency in schools, colleges, universities, cities, counties and other agencies funded and governed by the state. |
| As with his untruthful claim of a balanced budget, Newsom’s claim about an efficient budget is misleading. |
