ARNOLD REVEALS STAFF NUMBERS ABOUT 185 WORK FOR GOVERNOR, SAYS REPORT.

Byline: David M. Drucker Sacramento Bureau

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today is disclosing the exact number of workers employed on his executive staff, ending a practice first used by his predecessors to mask the true size and budget of the gubernatorial work force.

In a letter to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee obtained by the Daily News, the Schwarzenegger administration publicizes for the first time that it employs slightly fewer than 185 people - the maximum number of available positions - and that their salaries cost taxpayers $18.3 million.

``The governor wants transparency in government,'' Schwarzenegger Press Secretary Margita Thompson said late Tuesday. ``He thinks the people should truly know what resources are being committed in the governor's office to do the people's work.''

Democrats, warily awaiting Schwarzenegger's 2005-06 budget proposal, due out the first week of January, complimented the effort.

``I think this is a good step to take,'' said Assemblywoman Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park, who as chairwoman of the Assembly Appropriations Committee serves on the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.

``It is a modest step in showing what is truly in the budget, and I do think it is good to show what positions truly belong to which department.''

The disclosure ends the practice of a governor or administration adding employees to the staff without officially accounting for where the money is being spent.

Previous governors, Democrats and Republicans, did this by filling vacant positions in other executive level departments under the governor's control - like the Department of Transportation - with the individuals instead going to work in the governor's office.

These employees would work as a gubernatorial aide in one of the governor's Capitol offices, or in one of the governor's six field offices, such as those in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, the cost to employ them show up in the department where the position originated.

Now all such workers are being turned into actual employees of ``the Governor's Office.''

In the process, the positions are being eliminated from their departments of origin. The various departments affected will see their personnel budgets cut by a collective $5 million in general-fund money and $7.2 million in nongeneral-fund money.

Steve Frates, an economist who studies government finance, called Schwarzenegger's move one that should be emulated at all levels of government.

``One of the biggest difficulties in analyzing government is finding out precisely how agencies and programs are staffed, and finding out precisely how those staffing levels are financed,'' said Frates, a senior fellow at the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College.

``He's cutting out the games and setting an excellent example.''

Among the 116 executive-department positions filled by members of the governor's staff - now officially on the chief executive's payroll - are 17 former ``employees'' of the Office of Planning and Research, 15 former ``employees of the Department of Corrections and six former ``employees'' of the Department of Consumer Affairs.

Employees on the governor's staff earn salaries ranging from $25,000 to $30,000 annually for the position of office assistant to anywhere from $120,000 to just under $140,000 annually for cabinet level positions. Schwarzenegger has chosen not to take his $175,000 annual salary since taking office in November 2003.

``I've never felt that salaries on executive side were outrageous,'' said Tim Hodson, executive director of the Center for California Studies at California State University, Sacramento.

David M. Drucker, [phone]

david.drucker(at)dailybulletin.com