I don't know about in other states, but in California the government officials always think the best and first way to cut the budget is slashing employees pay.   BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO LAZY to invest in comprehensive purchasing/inventory/accounts payable program.   They have a system for inventory in the operations divisions that are separate from the City or County's Accounting system.   They purchase items and the purchasing system does not tie into the City or County's accounting system.   And they print out reports for the accountants and month end for the journal entries.    IT IS THE FINANCE DEPARTMENTS FAULT OF ALL LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS!   Purchasing is the HEART of any corporation or government agency.

What I find APPALLING is that the unions have to keep kicking back to the City Council and other agencies is the fact they want the same amount of work done, in a shorter amount of time and take away a full day pay from these people a week.   Then what is so stupid is that even though they get the furloughs, the government has to have the work done so they end up paying the people overtime to make up for the day lost.   Stop furloughing and invest in a purchasing system.

I am tired of seeing great supervisors try on the back end to get a better price for parts and their higher ups ask them, "what are you trying to do?  Make us look bad?"   Hmm, when I was a purchasing manager I had set up with vendors a bid system and locked the lowest priced vendor in for that group of parts for 6 months.   I had a form for THEM to come in and count the inventory and they got a form from ME!   And they submitted to me what they think I needed for that month, I approved it and then I updated that Purchase Order with an extension like PO 10250.v2.   Then I tracked the shipments.

If ANYBODY bought anything without a PO including on the credit card for Home Depot, they were in MY OFFICE!   And I had HR in there to write them up!  

WHAT IS SO HARD CITY'S AND COUNTIES?    Really, how many employees are taking home random stuff?