Since the recession began, nearly 1 million Californians have lost their jobs. In August, only three California industries added jobs ---- one of them was our state government. Yes, despite the famous California furloughs, our government has added another 2,000 people to the payroll. 

Is it any wonder that the budget passed just a few months ago already has another $1.1 billion shortfall? 

California's liberal Democrats managed to save countless government jobs by implementing furloughs. Furloughs, forced time off without pay, are the weakest of management tools to reduce labor costs. While they help avoid severance costs, outplacement fees or early retirement benefits, they do nothing to address the uncontrolled growth in California's state government. On the contrary, as the economy improves, they enable a near-immediate expansion in government spending to our bloated pre-recession levels. 

For some reason, California's public labor unions seem to believe that government jobs should not only be exempt from the layoffs seen in private industry, but that our beleaguered private industry should support their demands for even more lavish pensions, better health benefits, and salary raises, regardless of our current economic plight.

By maintaining the current workforce size, furloughs prevent our government from cutting expenses related to rent, automobiles, benefits, computers, phones, etc. Furthermore, furloughs can actually increase future unemployment costs because in some cases furloughed workers can receive unemployment benefits. 

Furloughs allow managers to escape making the difficult decisions. They hold excellent employees in the same regard as the mediocre and poor. In this regard, they actually promote mediocrity and have a negative impact on workplace morale. 

Furloughs are nothing more than another California gimmick to delay dealing with uncontrolled growth in our state government. 

Adam Summers, author of "California Spending by the Numbers," performed an analysis of California's fiscal policy under governors Pete Wilson to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Summers notes that as an approximate estimate, increases in government spending should not exceed the percentage sum of population growth and inflation. Since 1991, California's population growth has seen an annual average increase of 1.38 percent, while inflation likewise increased by 2.99 percent yearly. Summed together, one would predict that a reasonable increase in government spending would be 4.37 percent yearly. Unfortunately, under public employee union control, California's general fund spending has rather increased by an average of 5.37 percent annually. 

This deceivingly small difference of 1 percent has had a sobering impact on our state. Since the 1990-1991 fiscal year, state spending has increased by 181 percent. Stated differently, spending increased from $51.4 billion in 1990-1991 to $144.5 billion in 2008-2009. 

Where California has failed to make real savings, our neighbors in Utah have found some success. 

In 2008, former Governor Jon Huntsman transitioned state offices to a four-day workweek.  Energy savings was the initial motivation to make this transition, but like many simple ideas an unanticipated benefit was realized. After working a 10-hour day, state employees were less motivated to work overtime and appreciative of the regular three-day weekends. In the end, the anticipated $3 million savings was actually $4.8 million, and less than $600,000 was attributed to energy savings. 

Could California see a similar economy of scale with the same idea? Well, our public employee labor unions make this unlikely. 

On Jan. 1, 2000, the Eight-Hour-Day Restoration and Workplace Flexibility Act of 1999 (introduced as AB 60) went into effect. AB60 was organized labor's answer to the Industrial Welfare Commission eliminating "daily" overtime pay in 1998. In a strange twist of fate, public employees are not protected by AB 60. However, AB 60 does provide a special exemption to the daily overtime rules where the work force is unionized. This exception applies when the employees in the union earn at least 30 percent above the prevailing state minimum wage and the union contract provides for paying an overtime premium on all overtime hours worked. In other words, AB 60 actually encourages public employees to unionize and artificially inflates wages.

So for now, California's "savings" will be limited to the furlough gimmick. 

Oh, by the way, Superior Court Judge Woodland recently ruled that 7,500 State Insurance Fund employees should never have been furloughed. The taxpayers' price tag for this ruling is $23.5 million, with more lawsuits soon to follow. Naturally, the public employee union that won this lawsuit was Service Employee International Union (SEIU), the same group that contributed more than $27 million in support of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. 

If you are not mad yet, you are not paying attention.

Dr. GARY GONSALVES is a North San Diego County anesthesiologist and co-founder of Stop Taxing Us. Contact him at www.StopTaxingUs.com.