Old technology foils Schwarzenegger's wage order

[schauerlich]

Uhh....I'm quite certain this is a software application issue and not a OS platform issue. Moreover, if you had read the article, you would have seen the part about the payroll system was designed over 60 years ago, and revamped in 1970. It's likely a Unix system, so I guess you can start trashing Unix now.

I was predicting someone would find a way to blame windows, not blaming it myself.

[SoFl W]

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[earthpigg]

If you are 25+ years old, have a family and are still making minimum wage...you have made some seriously poor decisions in your life.

Like working for the State of California, apparently.

[Madspyman]

Schwarzenegger gave James Cameron a call to see if he could do anything to help out, Cameron said "give me a call in 12 years."

[icechen1]

I like how Reps keeps failing at techs recently. :0

[jrusso2]

I bet the governor and his staff are not making min wage.

[Dr. C]

Over 60 years ago that places it in the late 1940's. The type of technology used in those days was the IBM tabulating or accounting machine and of course punch cards. This is a model from 1949 http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/407.html. IBM migrated is clients to the mainframe in the 1960's and 1970's and still kept the punch card which was used with mainframe computers such as the system 360/370. The punch cards started to be phased out in the late 1970's and early 1980's.

[McRat]

You need to understand that California public employees unions have run this state for decades now. No legislation they do not approve of gets passed, nor any budget. They want more money, and won't let the budget pass, even though they are among the highest paid public employees in the world.

California now trails most other states in all metrics of government efficiency. In the 1960's it led the country in nearly every aspect.

The percentage of families that keep their kids out of the public school system climbs every year, and you don't get a discount for doing it. It costs twice as much per student to have them in a non-profit public school as it does to put them through a for-profit private school. The test scores from private schools is far higher. Low income families work 2 jobs for each parent so they can give their kids a future, and still have to pay for the public schools they don't use. Private schools use to be only for the wealthy, now most students are from the middle or lower class.

Yeah, Arnie's a schmuck, but he doesn't draw a salary. His salary cuts hit the union leaders where it hurts. It erodes their support. A jail guard making $80,000/yr with a HS diploma is not as determined to hold out for the $90k the union wants them to be paid.

[stmiller]

Payroll systems are complicated. It's not about just setting the pay amount.

Lots of other factors are handled by the software:

-retirement
-taxes
-insurance
, etc ,etc

There is a lot of math going on and different feeds coming in/out. Drastically dropping the pay would most likely break other systems that pull in or out of or depend upon that payroll system.

CA state DMV is still using DOS. I wouldn't be surprised if the payroll system is just as ancient.

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The CA congress should have its pay suspended until they pass the budget. That is the only way to do this.

[betrunkenaffe]

Payroll systems are complicated. It's not about just setting the pay amount.

Lots of other factors are handled by the software:

-retirement
-taxes
-insurance
, etc ,etc

There is a lot of math going on and different feeds coming in/out. Drastically dropping the pay would most likely break other systems that pull in or out of or depend upon that payroll system.

CA state DMV is still using DOS. I wouldn't be surprised if the payroll system is just as ancient.

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The CA congress should have its pay suspended until they pass the budget. That is the only way to do this.

It's kind of crazy the way math works. If you have a number, say 60,000 in a formula and want to swap out that 60,000 for say 15,000, your end result of your formula will perfectly match the expected. This is of course provided you set up your formula correctly in the first place...

In other words, it is as simple as changing the numbers because the system should automatically calculate all the changes and provide the correct output information. If it doesn't then they should definitely look into using a payroll service because theirs is so completely inadequate, it isn't doing it's current job without the "min wage" thing.