The Legislators Budget Process, somewhere there's an answer.

 
It seems that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has negotiated with Service Employees International Employees Union (SEIU) Local 1000, representing 95,000 state workers to eliminate two paid holidays, Lincoln’s Birthday and Columbus Day. However, if you think that’s going to help the budget, it will not because in lieu of the paid holidays, the state workers will get two “floating” personal days off with pay instead (read vacation)! Then there’s ”Furlough Fridays”, going from two mandated days off per month to one day off. 

According to the Sacramento Bee , in further talks the two days mandated to be taken off, popularly known as the “Furlough Fridays” (approximately a 10% cut in pay) for state workers has been changed to eight hours of unpaid “flex time”off per month. This is good, because it will not dock the pay of the state workers so much (only a 5% cut in pay, and it will keep the state offices open through out the work week. Closing the state offices on two set Fridays has been a terrible burden on the small businesses and particularly restaurants around the capitol area.

The bad news is there are still eleven more other state bargaining units left to negotiate with! Let’s hope the Gov. uses a little different logic in his negotiations when it comes to eliminating holidays. Let’s see how this turns out.

The most telling information to come out recently is that the State Legislators themselves are not suffering during the budget crisis. They are still getting their $116,000 annual salary, their $173 per day for food and lodging and $400 a month for auto expense. Why should they be in a hurry to balance a budget?

Prescription Card

I was wandering around on the Internet the other day and what a surprise when I stumbled unto the fact that the county of Nevada County has a free prescription card. On reading further on the Nevada County website, it states that the card may be used by all county residents, regardless of age, income or existing health coverage. The National Association of Counties has made this available to all counties that want this discount prescription card and to our good fortune, the Nevada County Public Health Department decided to make this card available to us living in Nevada County. (The formal name of the card is “The National Association of Counties NACo Drug Discount Card or simply NACo discount card”)

There is no enrollment form, no membership fee and no restrictions or limits on frequency of use. Cardholders and their family members may use the card anytime their prescriptions are not covered by insurance. According to the County, savings average 20 percent, some discounts may be more, and some less, depending on the drug and quantity purchased. Cardholders are eligible for higher discounts on a three-month supply of some medications through mail service. If you have a pet, believe it or not, you can save on pet prescriptions at participating retail pharmacies. By the way, this is not an insurance card.

The card may be used at over 57,000 pharmacies nationwide, including most chain pharmacies and many independents. Wal-Mart participates in the program. In addition the program has a safety feature that alerts pharmacists when one drug may conflict with another medication the card holder is taking, if the prescriptions were obtained with the NACo discount card. The card program remains a useful option now that Medicare Part D has been implemented. For example, the card can be used when a Medicare Part D plan doesn’t cover a drug.

For information on obtaining a NACo discount card call 530–265-140 or go to 500 Crown Point Circle, Grass Valley, CA, If you do not live in Nevada County, check with your County Health Department and see if they have enrolled in this program.