The analysis provided at the above link is an example of lying with statistics. The average salary for private sector is shown for 2000-2009 but not for the public sector. Is this because public sector average pay was higher? Evidently so or the person who conducted the study would have included it.

Most studies I have reviewed show there is no difference between public and private sector pay when compared with large private companies of 500 or more employees. But the average pay for public employees is not the whole issue. It is the sheer number of public employees who have “non-essential” or “make work” jobs. See my analysis on this this website of how most of proposed school budget cuts are fluff. About 45% of the entire state school budget of some $44 billion is for categorical ancillary jobs (not core teaching) and overly small class sizes.

As a public employee for most of my career I can attest to this phenomenon personally. In the military I observed how during peacetime the army had too many troops with nothing to do. When I was put into combat in a war I noticed how everyone suddenly “had a job to do,” not make work or endless training exercises.

Many of our big water agencies are like this with whole armies of engineers with nothing to do until the next big water project comes around. Such agencies should never have hired permanent employees on this basis but should have put them on a labor contract instead.

Most of the Federal Stimulus monies for California went to bail out public sector jobs with the exception of road improvement projects which hired some construction workers. But there are about 6 private sector employees out of work for every one government employee in California.

“We need to gut the public employee power in CA — which is maintained through their powerful public employee labor unions. Contract out their jobs, and we’ll have smaller, less significant government labor unions.”

Wages in California’s private sector increased 32.73% in nominal terms for the 10 year period 2000 – 2009. Inflation during this period was a modest 25.4%. Therefore, California Private Sector Wages increased 7.33% in REAL terms for the 10 year period ending 2009.

Wages for California Civil Service Employees increased only 6.9% in nominal terms for the 10 year period 2000 – 2009. After adjusting for inflation, California Civil Service Employees lost (18.5%) of their REAL wages for the 10 year period ending 2009.

“powerful public employee labor unions”?

You must be kidding, right?

Yes, in some cases, outsourcing may be the way to go. But in no way does one size fit all.

The lesson of Greenhut’s book “Plunder” — which exposes our California state and local public employee aristocracy living the life of Poodle — is that the governor needs to add a third (or perhaps fourth) voter option to his false “either-or” choice. It’s not just less services or more taxes — the issue he’s dodging is how best to DELIVER desired public services.

This third option offers at least two avenues of massive savings:

1. Reduce the clearly excessive public employee pay and benefits — something politicians are loathe to do on their own.

2. Don’t use public employees to provide most public services — contract every possible government function out using COMPETITIVE bidding. Contract out most of our prisons, our libraries, the DMV (as does Missouri), education (via vouchers or tax credits), parks and many other state and local functions.

I prefer the second avenue for three reasons:

A. Savings for taxpayers would start at 30% — and in this day and age, could easily exceed 50%.

B. Such pressure will encourage existing public employees to accept significant cuts in their compensation.

C. We need to gut the public employee power in CA — which is maintained through their powerful public employee labor unions. Contract out their jobs, and we’ll have smaller, less significant government labor unions.