Pay games

So which is it: Furloughs or raises? California's Administrative Office of the Courts seems to be playing both sides. The Daily Journal reports that between February 2008 and July 2009, the office promoted nearly 80 employees (raising the pay of a few by as much as 31 percent). This, by the way, is the same court system that supposedly imposed a freeze on promotions.

The records show that while the agency imposed once-monthly furlough days on employees with one hand, it has increased salaries so much with the other that, coupled with new hires, its payroll costs grew 6 percent from July 2008 to July 2009, for a total of nearly $4.2 million per year. William Vickrey, administrative director of the courts, said promotions given since the freeze were limited to critical positions and were allowed only through a rigorous exemption process. Most of the raises, he said, were 3.5 percent merit increases authorized by Chief Justice Ronald M. George for both the AOC and the appellate courts.

A 3.5 percent pay raise is tiny - as is the $4.2 million overall increase. But it sets a bad tone for a state that is struggling to pay its bills each month. As for the larger raises:

Philip Carrizosa, a spokesman for the AOC, said in an e-mail that some of the outsized raises were necessary to keep top-level employees. He said others received big raises because of "increased job responsibilities," even though their job titles did not change. "In most instances, the employee was at the lower end of the salary range for their position and raises were made within the salary range without promoting the employee to a new job classification," Carrizosa wrote in the e-mail.