Something I just thought of while I was washing out my tupperware in the office kitchen after lunch: If the state workers do have their salaries cut down to Federal minimum wage (i.e. if Arnold can find a few hundred COBOL programmers ASAP) will they get their union dues taken out of that? Or will they not have to pay their union dues?
The Sac Rag 
Yes. In theory all deductions would be taking off of the warrant, this includes union dues, health care, retirement, dental, etc.
IF SCO was capable of dropping everyone’s pay down to minimum wage, it would not be capable of subtracting deductions from the total, because it would not be capable of paying those deductions at a later date once the budget has been passed.
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Okay, so this is probable in theory…and this isn’t a theory class of highest available likelihood. So what’s the real world answer? Anyone?
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I say theory, in the fact that it’s all still getting hashed out. DPA and SCO are meeting right now to figure out what is and isn’t possible.
BTW as an ex DPA employee who still has an ear in the department, and as a person who has worked directly with PPSD (the unit within SCO that pays state workers) everything in my second paragraph is true, so you can take it for what it’s worth.
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I’m sort of dense when it comes to these issues so I’m not tracking this well, will you allow me to paraphrase?
“Yes, theoretically all normal deductions will continue to be taken from these employees’ paychecks because otherwise there would be no way to make up the deductions later.”
Is that what you meant? Won’t they be getting their back pay down the road, and couldn’t the deductions come off that?
In addition to union dues, which if I were one of these employees I would view as a slap in the face, seeing as I’d be working for even less than the state’s minimum wage, union membership notwithstanding, there are other issues too… I assume a lot of people on minimum wage are not having their healthcare being deducted from that amount. If they continue to deduct these employees normal healthcare withholdings that is going to cut waaay into the actual checks they’d be getting. Plus hard withholdings like set monthly amounts for FSAs and the like. Ugh, what a nightmare, my heart goes out to these folks!
Turty I don’t suppose you’d kindly sit this thread out?
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Truly the problem lies in the fact that they don’t have a plan for how to handle this situation. It’s unprecedented in the state, and when things are unprecedented in the state it takes a VERY long time for those things to get figured out. The main reason Arnie waited till the first day of the pay period was because he needed to provide SCO/DPA/Finance all the time possible to figure out how to do this. Of course as some of the articles have shown the resources aren’t there to figure this out in one month, it would take more like 12 months to figure out who should get paid minimum and who should not, what deductions should be taken out and which one’s shouldn’t. It’s just not possible considering the resources the state has in the HR world.
But to get back to your question, it’s possible that union dues could be excluded, but I don’t see how medical could be. The way medical works is you pay for that on a monthly basis and if the state doesn’t make that payment on your behalf every month you won’t be covered.
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Oh man imagine it all. What about people who have auto deductions for 457 retirement plans? Plus the auto bill pay set ups that I hope everyone remembers to turn off.
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