Governor paid huge Staff Bonuses in spite of campaign debt

The Los Angeles Times has reported that Governor Schwarzenegger racked up more than $2 million in campaign debt in last year’s election. In spite of this, the Governor paid huge “bonuses” to his staff for moonlighting work on the campaign while on the state payroll. After his victory on Nov. 7 the governor paid more than a quarter million dollars in bonuses to four of his senior staff members including a payment of $100,000 to Susan Kennedy, his Chief of Staff. A spokeswoman for the Governor said, “They put in a tremendous amount of hours on the campaign trail before and after work and on weekends, and they were compensated for that time.”

Do they really expect us to believe this nonsense? Even private sector salaried workers are expected to be dedicated to their jobs and are not paid for overtime work. Government employees are never supposed to use their jobs to collect pay offs like this- especially when they involve the obvious potential for conflict of interest. With the responsibilities associated with being senior officials in the California government, exactly how much free time do these guys have? The Governor and his staff are on extremely shaky ground here. As anyone who has tried to contact the Governor’s Office knows, unless you are a big shot they are just not interested.

As the Times reported, the Governor won’t have to struggle to cover his campaign debt, “Now that Schwarzenegger is embarked on another four-year term, he can tap businesses and other special interests whose fortunes depend on state action”. This is just one baby step removed from total corruption. Every decision made by the Governor’s office involving these campaign contributors must now be considered to be tainted. This is just plain wrong, and the money should be returned without delay.