Schwarzenegger wins another round in furlough legal fight

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The Schwarzenegger administration won another victory in court Thursday as a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled furloughs at the state medical board were legal.

More than two dozen separate cases are pending challenging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s authority to furlough state workers. The latest ruling comes in a case filed by the California Medical Assn. in October.

“Before California’s physicians filed this lawsuit, the medical board had a backlog of more than 700 license applications that forced doctors to wait for months to get their licenses approved because staff who could have been processing them were on furloughs,” association President Brennan Cassidy said. “By upholding these furloughs, the court is allowing this governor to cut Californians’ access to care and jeopardize patient safety, which we believe is completely unacceptable.”

This week, Schwarzenegger asked the state Supreme Court to consolidate seven separate furlough cases that are on appeal. Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Rachel Arrezola said the request was made “in an effort to save money and time and to get a final decision on the governor’s furlough authority as quickly as possible.”

Schwarzenegger has not called for the continuation for furloughs for the 2010-11 fiscal year. The current three furlough days per month for most state employees -- which amounts to about a 14% pay cut -- are set to expire at the end of June.