SACRAMENTO—California Governor Gavin Newsom is under fire after not taking May’s promised pay cut.
An article in The Sacramento Bee reported August 20 Newsom has continued to receive his full monthly salary of $17,479 after pledging to take a pay cut in mid-May in solidarity with state workers.
On May 14, the governor proposed a 10% pay cut for state workers to assist with the $54 billion state budget deficit.
Though elected officials are technically exempt from salary cuts due to budgetary fallout, Newsom promised he and his government’s full workforce would be taking pay cuts as well.
According to the Controller’s office, Newsom had pressed elected officials, leading Treasurer Fiona Ma, Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis, Superintendent of public instruction Tony Thurmond, Attorney General Xavier Becerra, and Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, to similarly request pay reductions.
Newsom claimed in a mid-may press conference to have officially asked the Controller to adjust his pay starting July 1.
Newsom’s staff claimed the pay-cut error was due to an “administrative error.”
According the state controller’s office data released by the Bee on Thursday, State Controller Betty Yee was the only state-elected official to cut her pay last month.
In a press conference addressing the error on August 20, Newsom claimed, “The buck stops with me, I’m accountable […] No one’s trying to hide that, no one’s trying to mask that, we’re owning that, we’re moving forward to address those issues.”
The discovery of this error comes at a time when Newsom is increasingly under fire.
After a data error which backlogged nearly 300,000 virus test results, Newsom is seen as having failed to contain the resurgence of COVID-19 in California.
Sacramento’s KOVR also recently discovered PlumpJack, Newsom’s Northern-California-based winery and hospitality company, stayed open through July, after Newsom ordered all non-essential businesses to close in march.
According to data released by the U.S. Treasury Department, PlumpJack also received a loan of $150,000 to $350,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program.
