Because I did well in law school, I landed a job at a big downtown law firm where I worked during my first 18 months as an attorney.  The salary was great but corporate law wasn’t a good fit.  Having previously served as a Capitol Fellow I decided to return to public service.  I was hired by a large State Department in April 2008 and am currently employed there as in-house counsel.  I took a 40% pay cut to move from private practice to government service but thought the trade-off was worth it if only to be able to see my growing family once in awhile.  If only I had known I’d be asked forgo another 20%.

I like my job, enjoy having a high level of responsibility, relish having my own clients, and feel as if I contribute to the greater good by helping my clients to comply with and enforce the laws protecting public health and safety.  My co-workers in the office are all dedicated professionals and to a person defy the stereotypical notion of a “state worker.”

Since I became a state employee I’ve taken a 15% pay cut and, according to the news today, am now looking at an additional 5% cut.  Junior level attorneys don’t make much money compared to our brethren in local and federal government service and I won’t be receive any substantial raise until 2012 when I become eligible, by virtue of years of service, for a more senior attorney position.  Needless to say, that might not ever happen given the direction in which our state is headed.

At this point the only solutions for junior attorneys working for the state and facing large amounts of student loan debt are to default on our mortgages, declare bankruptcy via Chapter 13, or leave state service for the private sector (assuming there are any jobs available).  Although my monthly salary may seem high in comparison to many other state workers it has to cover my student loan debt, our mortgages, and other fixed costs.  In fact, when I went to work for the state my wife (a third-grade public school teacher) and I created a budget and realized we could get by on my starting salary but just barely.  Since then, my pay has gone from about $5100 per month when I was hired to $4505 per month which includes a 10% raise I received in April of this year when I passed probation and moved from Staff Counsel Range B to Staff Counsel Range C.  That promotion, in a non-furlough environment, would have increased my salary from $5100 per month to about $5600 per month.  Instead, I’m making $4505.  That’s an $1100 dollar swing between my projected earnings and what I’m actually making.  Add the fact that my wife and I just had our first baby in mid-April and we’re looking at substantially increased monthly expenditures.  We thought, when we found out my wife was pregnant, that because I would be moving from Range B to Range C that there would be no problem covering our expenses associated with a new baby.

I realize that some readers may not think I have anything to complain about given the fact that I have a job and that I’m making a decent salary –  and to some extent, I agree.  On the other hand, families make decisions about employment, living location and everything else on the basis of promises made to them by their employers.  Those promises seem especially likely when they are outlined in a union contract.  When I took the position with the Department last year I knew that our finances would be tight for the first year but thought we could make it.  I didn’t realize then that our budget would get even tighter as the Governor tries to punish state workers in an attempt to leverage the legislator to give him everything he wants.  Add a new baby into the equation and we are now really trying to figure out how we’ll manage.  Things are suddenly much tougher as the Governor continues to chop public employee wages and benefits.

After the third furlough day was imposed I began looking into bankruptcy and/or foreclosure.  We would qualify for a loan modification but our first mortgage isn’t owned by Fannie or Freddie but instead by Bank of America.  We can’t let the house to go into foreclosure because at this point our second mortgage (which we used for a new roof, fence, and to pay off some private student loan debt) is completely unsecured by the value of the home.  Practically, that means that the lender who holds the second mortgage could come after us personally for the balance of a loan that as once secured by our home’s value.  We could stop paying our second mortgage and it’s likely that the lender wouldn’t foreclose because it wouldn’t receive any proceeds after the foreclosure sale.  On the other hand, that would destroy our credit rating and eventually, when we’d paid off enough of the first mortgage, the second mortgage holder would begin foreclosure proceedings.  In short, we are stuck with both our house and our current mortgage payments of $2500 per month unless we file for bankruptcy.

We bring home about $5900 per month in salary.  We pay $2500 to the mortgage companies and $750 per month to the student loan companies.  That’s about 40% of our gross salary and 55% of the net.  Both of our cars are completely paid for but we could only keep one of the two cars if we were to file for bankruptcy.  Then there are the standard bills paid by any homeowner, water, light, heat, garbage, phone, Internet, day care, etc.  When all is said and done we’ll have about $900 a month left over to buy gas, groceries, and pay for other incidentals.

We are hanging on by what feels like a thread.  The first two furlough days meant that we cut all discretionary spending.  The third furlough day meant that we cancelled some monthly bills, started making the absolute minimum payments on our outstanding credit card debt and downgraded our service to the lowest possible level on things like cable, the land line phone and Internet, car insurance, my wife’s emergency cell phone, and whatever else we could live without.  Adding a fourth furlough day means that we’ll now move to cancel things like my life insurance policy, quarterly pest control, and the newspaper.  It may also mean, given the minimal nature of those savings, that we may declare bankruptcy.  I suspect that any plan imposed by a bankruptcy court through a Chapter 13 wouldn’t be any more stringent than the life we suddenly find ourselves living.  Having one car, however, could prove to be a problem.

Putting our family problems aside, however, I feel truly bad for those thousands of my co-workers and Californians who make less money and are therefore impacted more drastically by the Governor’s draconian plans.  Paul Krugman coined the phrase “50 Little Hoovers” in discussing state’s roles in our collective economic plight – the phrase refers to each state government making cuts at the absolutely worst time in our current crisis.  Cuts that send hard working state employees over the edge into bankruptcy.  Cuts that drive thousands and thousands of uninsured children, the disabled, the working poor, and the elderly into financial oblivion and grinding poverty.  Unfortunately for California, our current Governor isn’t a “Little Hoover” but is instead “Boss Hoover” – sitting smoking his cigars and reclining in his jacuzzi while refusing to negotiate in good faith.

The economic and social climate in this state has changed for the worse and state workers must stand up against foolish and wrongheaded “know-nothing” diatribes by those who seek to demonize state workers and shrink California’s social safety net.  Without those of us who choose to work in service to the citizens of this once great state there would be no safe roads, no first responders to save lives, no professors to educate our children at the University of California and the California State University System, no teachers for the children in our public schools, no one to put out the fires that rage through our state every year, no one to protect us against the misconduct and crime committed by professional licensees such as doctors, nurses, dentists, chiropractors and contractors; no one to investigate or prosecute statewide crime, no one to represent the People during criminal appeals, no one to open and maintain our state parks, no one to regulate our health insurers, inspect our hospitals, and safeguard the public health, no one to guard the state’s violent prisoners, and no one to patrol our highways to stop drunk and reckless drivers.  In short, without state employees California would resemble a third-world country.  Who knows, that may be the Governor’s plan.  That would certainly be the outcome if the budget problem is solved through cuts alone.  Rather than continue to attempt to balance the state budget on the backs of those least able to bear it our politicians can begin to solve this budget crisis by rescinding the 3.5 billion in corporate tax cuts enacted during the April version of what is becoming a semi-annual budget drill.    (crossposted @ DailyKos)