Don Novey, former leader of a union that raised $3 million for candidates and causes last year, now makes $114,191 a year on a state board. Sacramento Bee file, 2002/Randy Pench

Political insiders land plum posts

For six figures, they serve on panels that seldom meet, get little oversight.

By Jim Sanders -- Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Sunday, March 9, 2003

Don Novey, once one of the people legislators feared most, now earns more than $114,000 per year as a political appointee.

Tom Calderon, a former assemblyman, landed a $99,000-per-year post from his good buddy and former colleague, Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson.

Cheryl Peace, wife of former senator and current state Finance Director Steve Peace, can pocket nearly $118,000 this year for sitting on the waste management board.

Add their names to a long list of politicians, legislative staffers and Capitol insiders who have nabbed appointments in recent years to a handful of lucrative boards that typically meet once or twice a month and pay salaries in the $100,000 range.

California's network of boards and commissions has grown piecemeal through the years with little uniformity or consistency: Members of the education board are paid just $100 per meeting to decide key academic issues, for example, while members of the waste board earn $118,000 per year to oversee trash disposal.

Some of the highest-paying panels tend to receive a disproportionate share of insiders. Since it became a full-time board in 1990, for example, the lucrative waste panel has had four former legislators, three wives of former legislators and numerous former high-ranking state officials or key staffers.

"Let's stop the political payback," said Assemblyman Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark. "With this budget deficit, we have an opportunity to stop and ask, 'What are California's priorities?' We need to go after everything we can find."

Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, who chairs the Rules Committee that chose Peace and Novey, said appointing people who know state government and can get things done -- whether Capitol insiders or not -- serves the public interest.

"You appoint people who are qualified and able to do the job," Burton said.

Support is growing in the Legislature for a board-by-board analysis of cost-effectiveness. Cutting panels would not necessarily ease California's budget crisis, however, because they represent only a tiny fraction of state spending, and some of the highest-paying boards are funded through fees or other dedicated revenue sources.

Proponents say boards and commissions provide a valuable service by expanding decision-making beyond the realm of department heads or technical experts. Boards are designed to ensure a diversity of viewpoints and public input before decisions are made on critical issues -- from water to garbage to air pollution -- that affect every Californian.

But lawmakers have provided little oversight over many appointed boards, so Californians who pay the bills have no idea whether members are working hard, serving effectively -- or just biding their time and collecting a huge paycheck.

The state's most lucrative commissions range from the powerful to the obscure, from policy-making bodies to quasi-judicial agencies, from the Public Utilities Commission or the Energy Commission to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.

Four high-paying boards on which legislators or Capitol insiders have served are the Integrated Waste Management Board, the Medical Assistance Commission, the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board.

Current members of the four boards include former legislators Calderon, Teresa Hughes, Carl Washington, Elihu Harris and Virginia Strom-Martin; several former state officials or key staffers; and two politicians' spouses -- Peace and Janice Murray, wife of Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Culver City.

Novey, a member of the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, formerly served as president of the powerful California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which contributed more than $3 million to political candidates and causes last year.

A recent appointee to one of the four boards was A. John Shimmon, 79, named to the workers' compensation panel by Gov. Gray Davis last month, a position that pays $114,191. Shimmon is a former Board of Equalization employee and the father of Silicon Valley executive David Shimmon, who has donated $350,000 to Davis over the past two years.

Public records provide little help in determining how hard appointees of the four boards work or how effective they are. Time spent in board meetings tends to be minimal.

Minutes of the California Medical Assistance Commission, whose members earn $99,000, show that none of their twice-monthly meetings lasted longer than three hours last year -- and six of the sessions ended within 90 minutes, including closed-door contract talks.

Sandra Smoley, who chairs the commission, said the bulk of the work occurs behind the scenes -- reading reports, making phone calls and laying the groundwork to negotiate contracts for Medi-Cal hospital in-patient rates and other such matters.

"(Billions) have been saved because of what we do. I think you have to look beyond salary. ... If the state didn't have this commission, it would be a big negative for taxpayers, both at the state and federal levels," said Smoley, a former secretary of the Health and Welfare Agency who was appointed to the commission by former Gov. Pete Wilson.

Smoley and Calderon, colleagues on the commission, say they spend at least 10 hours a week on commission business. In their spare time, they supplement their $99,000 state salary by providing consulting services.

The Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, like the Medical Assistance Commission, conducts its heaviest lifting outside public meetings. Minutes show that only six issues sparked board votes last year -- and five of the tallies were unanimous.

"Meetings are almost incidental to the work of the board," said Harris, a former assemblyman and current board member.

The primary job of the board, which pays $114,191 per year, is to consider appeals from decisions of administrative law judges.

Novey said he spends roughly six to seven hours per day, sometimes more, reviewing 20 to 25 legal decisions -- a pace that breaks down to roughly three cases per hour.

The board keeps no statistics on how often board members modify, reject or rubber-stamp staff recommendations.

Novey said he thinks Burton considered him for the appointment, in part, because he helped the senator win the pro tem post years ago.

"He was very loyal that I stood behind him," Novey said. "I think he's never forgotten that."

Members of the California Integrated Waste Management Board, which oversees recyling and other trash-related programs, say they routinely exceed a 40-hour workweek, though the board typically holds just one all-day session each month and four committee meetings averaging about three hours each.

Chairwoman Linda Moulton-Patterson and other waste board members said they routinely average between 45 and 60 hours per week on recycling, waste diversion, tire disposal and numerous other landfill or trash-related issues.

"I think it would be disingenuous not to give the public what they pay for," said Steven R. Jones, who earns $117,818 as the waste industry's representative on the panel. "I don't know of any board members who take advantage."

From its inception, however, the waste board has been a lightning rod for cronyism. Former Gov. George Deukmejian named Chief of Staff Michael Frost and state Finance Director Jesse Huff to the board just days before leaving office in January 1991. They joined the wife of then-Assemblyman Harris, Kathy Neal, who was appointed by Willie Brown, the Assembly speaker at the time and a longtime ally of Harris.

Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, said the key issue is not whether boards contribute something positive to state government -- some are vital.

"You just don't need to pay appointees $100,000," Stern said. "How many legislators have been appointed to boards that pay little? None."

Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta, said termed-out legislators "fight, bite and scratch" for plum appointments.

Haynes said a senator once approached him, in the mid-1990s, and confided that "I like your bill, it's a fine bill, but if I gave you my vote, it would cost me my appointment. And I'm not willing to do that."

Strickland has proposed legislation, AB 556, that would slice pay for serving on 14 lucrative boards to $100 per meeting through 2006.

"We have people showing up once a month and making $118,000 a year," Strickland said. "Let's put that in perspective: Police officers show up every day, put their lives on the line and they don't make that much money."

With Democrats controlling the Governor's Office and both houses of the Legislature -- enabling party leaders to make key board appointments -- Strickland's bill faces an uphill struggle.

Sen. Ross Johnson, R-Irvine, has introduced a bill to cap, but not eliminate, the salaries of high-paying board members.

Democrats are eyeing alternative measures: For the first time in nearly a decade, a Senate committee is planning to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of numerous boards and commissions, starting with small advisory ones, later this year.

Sen. Jackie Speier, a Hillsborough Democrat who will lead the effort, said the goal is to eliminate some of the more than 200 panels that consume public funds. Many are voluntary but use paid staff. Speier said she does not know whether the effort will extend this year to high-paying boards.

Meanwhile, Davis has asked all appointees earning more than $60,000 to accept a voluntary 5 percent pay cut, effective at the end of March.

Sen. Wes Chesbro, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said potential savings from eliminating boards wouldn't dent the state's massive budget shortfall -- but a board-by-board review is important nonetheless, the Arcata Democrat said.

"If we can't demonstrate that we've reduced the bureaucracy and overhead of government, we can't justify cuts in services or (higher) taxes," Chesbro said. "We've got to do that first."

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