Grain of Salt department

Why do I not believe these people. From MS/NBC:

Old technology stymies Calif. gov's pay-cut order
As the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger was the technology of the future, feared by humans. As governor, he's being foiled by the technology of the past.

For the second time in two years, Schwarzenegger has ordered most state workers' pay cut to the federal minimum wage because lawmakers missed their deadline to fix the state's $19 billion budget deficit. The Legislature's failure to act has left the state without a spending plan as the new fiscal year begins.

A state appellate court ruled in Schwarzenegger's favor Friday, but the state controller, who issues state paychecks, says he can't comply. One reason given by Controller John Chiang, a Democrat elected in 2006: The state's computer system can't handle the technological challenge of restating paychecks to the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour.

Chiang cited Friday's ruling by the 3rd District Court of Appeals, which said "unfeasibility" would excuse him from complying with Schwarzenegger's minimum wage order. He said a fix to the state's computerized payroll system won't be ready until October 2012.

Meanwhile, more than 200,000 state workers remain in limbo about the size of their July paychecks while Chiang asks the court for guidance on how to proceed. If wages are indeed cut to $7.25 an hour, employees will be reimbursed once a budget is signed.

At least one expert said the outdated nature of the payroll system should not be an excuse for failing to comply with the governor's directive.

John Harrigan, who served as a division chief for the state's payroll services from 1980 to 2006, said upgrading the system would be complicated, time-consuming and expensive, but it could be done.

Christ on a Corn Dog -- what is it about governmental computing systems. Crap like this would be shot down in a heartbeat at a major corporation. What they are asking for is to continue this group of people at their normal salary of -- say -- $25/hour, track and record their earnings but only cut paychecks for $7.25 while storing the balance owed for a later payment. This is not rocket science. I use Quicken payroll for my ten employees and it would be all of about five minutes to set up if I needed to. If this was me, I would be on the phone Monday to companies like ADP or Paychex soliciting bids to outsource the whole payroll system -- this would probably save the California taxpayers a lot of money and get rid of the obsolete and incompetent system and people they have now. From what it sounds like, the CA payroll system is a custom program -- the idea that they are using this and not some Business Enterprise application like SAP boggles...