Jerry Brown strips cell phones from California state employees

I appreciate cosmetic improvements as much as the next guy, but my cynical bastard side thinks that cell phones are cheap and ostentatious (because real people actually pay for them) and pension/health benefits that are systematically looting the Californian pocket are expensive and stealthy (because we have convinced ourselves that no one needs to know the cost of these things).<p>$34 will pay the deferred benefits of, e.g., a California teacher for maybe a few hours if that.

Many employees these days at (mature) companies only make their work cell phone number available in the company listing - so, if they need to be reached after hours, or in an emergency, the company provides them with a cell phone.<p>On the flip side, little things like cell phones, coffee machines, free water, laptop refreshes every three years - these are the things that Government Jobs are notorious for stripping away and making those jobs much less attractive to star performers. It's kind of like a spectrum, with Facebook/Google on one side, and Government positions on the other.

This doesn't have as much to do with cell phones as it does with Jerry Brown's need to cut something. In other words I think he knows a lot of positions need cell phones but I think he also knows most people have personal phones they'll use if their work one is taken away. Since most people won't quit their job over the loss of a cell phone. So it's an easy cut to make (albeit an unfair one in many ways)<p>Sadly many of the union contracts specify employees be provided a cell phone so he's only going to get so far with this.

I'd have thought that the state would have more bargaining power to get a monthly cost substantially down from $34/month. Then again, I don't see why I need to pay for these people's cell phones. Jobs that require constant communications, like emergency services already have alternative systems in place. its just convenient for many other employees to have a cell phones.

Now if we could simultaneously make him governor of Illinois and do the same thing. Over here we are about to donate 2% of everyone's pay to one of the most corrupt state governments in the world, without any meaningful cuts at all.

This is almost cause to speculate that California may eventually become solvent without additional bailouts.