My thoughts on this Controller Chiang payroll minimum wage issue are in my op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune today. I have felt like a Cassandra on this matter for some years now…

“I’m not going to get into the esoteric world of reprogramming a three decade old legacy computer application. Yes, it would require significant effort to reprogram, and it would take several months, and it probably would cost several million dollars. But he had a two year reprieve to address the problem. What? He thought the budget issue was going to go away?

But he sat on the problem, more important to be a hero to the state employee unions, his largest campaign donor by the way, rather than the taxpayers. And he thought he could avoid this issue in the future because he would have a new, much more flexible payroll system.

Unfortunately for Mr. Chiang, the issue’s not COBOL, it’s competence.”

Here’s the link to the whole story.

Posted by John Thomas Flynn