Government in Action

[TJ_98370]

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This happened last August, so it's old news, but it was worth posting for its humor / entertainment value.....
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California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's plans to reduce all state employees pay to the minimum wage are being blocked because the payroll system is run on COBOL.
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Schwarzenegger signed an executive order last week to cut the salary of the state's 200,000 employees to the minimum wage until the state budget, currently 36 days behind schedule, is passed.
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But State Controller John Chiang told the Senate Committee on Governmental Organization that this was impossible as the payroll system was written 30 years ago in COBOL and there weren't enough programmers to do the job............
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Other sources for the story indicated that Mr. Schwarzenegger had also fired 10,000 temporary and part-time workers. Unfortunately, the only state employees that knew COBOL were some of the part-timers he just fired.
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