The 2025-26 Budget: Concession Bargaining

May 19, 2025 - We describe some of these past strategies below. Reducing Salary Costs. The below policies were implemented in the past to reduce state salary costs to help address an existing or anticipated budget problem.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5047

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Units 10 (Professional Scientists) and 18 (Psychiatric Technician)

Sep 9, 2025 - This suggests that the state might have challenges retaining psychiatric technicians despite the above market compensation levels. Bargaining Mandatory Overtime a Long-Standing Issue. The facilities where Unit 18 members work provide care to patients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5073

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 7 (Public Safety)

Sep 7, 2023 - Pay Increases Unit 7 Average Base Pay Slightly Lower Today Than 20 Years Ago. As Figure  2 shows, after controlling for inflation, the average Unit 7 base pay has fluctuated significantly over the past two decades.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4802

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 9 (Professional Engineers)

Jun 27, 2025 - As of March  2025, rank-and-file and excluded employees associated with Unit 9 totaled more than 17,600 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, accounting for about 7  percent of the state ’s total workforce (about 256,000 FTE).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5061

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 16 (Physicians, Dentists, and Podiatrists)

Jul 14, 2025 - As we indicated above, the state has used furloughs extensively in the past three decades in response to budget problems. Furloughs have some clear advantages, including that they are administratively easy to implement; they offer immediate and predictable levels of savings; and they do not require a reduction in workforce, allowing the state to immediately “staff up ” after the budget problem passes.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5064

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 6 (Corrections)

Jun 23, 2025 - As we indicated above, the state has used furloughs extensively in the past three decades in response to budget problems. Furloughs have some clear advantages including that they are administratively easy to implement; they offer immediate and predictable levels of savings; and they do not require a reduction in workforce, allowing the state to immediately “staff up ” after the budget problem passes.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5058

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 8 (Firefighters)

Aug 19, 2025 - Our State Workforce webpages include background information on the collective bargaining process, a description of this and other bargaining units, and our analyses of agreements proposed in the past.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5066

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 12 (Craft and Maintenance)

Jun 27, 2025 - As we indicated above, the state has used furloughs extensively in the past three decades in response to budget problems. Furloughs have some clear advantages including that they are administratively easy to implement; they offer immediate and predictable levels of savings; and they do not require a reduction in workforce, allowing the state to immediately “staff up ” after the budget problem passes.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5060

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 5 (Highway Patrol)

Aug 23, 2024 - As the figure shows, Unit 7 average base pay roughly kept pace with inflation over th e past two and a half decades. As we discussed in the 2007-08 Budget: Perspectives and Issues , the 2001 MOU for Unit 6 briefly tied Unit 6 salaries to Unit 5 salaries between 2001 and 2006—this parity can be seen in the figure as Unit 6 average base pay growth very closely followed growth in Unit 5 average base pay during that period.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4920

Labor Agreements to Achieve Budgetary Savings

Jul 11, 2025 - Our analyses of the current memoranda of understanding (MOUs) between the state and these bargaining units and other labor agreements proposed in the past are available on our State Workforces webpages .
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5063