State workers furloughed three Fridays a month face a roughly
14 percent pay cut. But Kim Anderson says her bottom line's
been slashed by much more:
"It was affected on Fridays was probably 35% slower than our normal Fridays."
Anderson is part owner of Ambrosia café - a popular lunch spot for the Capitol crowd:
"It just cut into the general sales because 50-60-% of our business is state workers and so they were cutting their budgets back so we just got less state workers in here just in general."
At Temple coffee shop a few blocks from the Capitol
business has also slowed, especially on furlough
Fridays. Manager Shannon Babka says sales are down 15 to 20
percent
"You get used to seeing the same faces every day and all
of a sudden a big chunk of people are cut out due to
furloughs."
The first round of furloughs lasted longer than a year and a
half - and wrapped up at the end of June. But Governor
Schwarzenegger ordered a new round, citing concerns about a looming
state cash crunch. After a couple of court decisions put the
unpaid days off on hold, the State Supreme Court agreed to take the
case - and allowed furloughs to continue in the
meantime.
Ryan Seng tends bar at the Grange Restaurant in downtown
Sacramento. As someone who relies heavily on tips, he says the
return of furloughs will have a big impact on him,
too:
"On Fridays it would affect me because I wouldn't make any
money at happy hour, a lot of times I wouldn't close the bar on
Friday night, I would do the earlier shift. I would
make a lot of my money during happy hour and when there is nobody
there it would really cut into my income."
And for Terry O'Reilly -- owner of a cookie shop popular with
state workers called Goodie Tuchews - the only answer is to close
up shop three Fridays a month:
"I won't stay open. It's too frustrating to be
open."
Governor Schwarzenegger's spokesman, Aaron McLear, says the
administration doesn't like ordering furloughs, but says they save
the state 150 million dollars a month:
"And as long as the legislature fails to produce a budget and the state's facing IOU's, the furloughs are necessary to save cash."
It's not clear how long the current set of furloughs will
continue. The Governor has said he'll keep them in effect
until a state budget deal is reached. So far, there's no
agreement in sight. SOC
