California Watch

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman wants to chop the state's workforce by 40,000 employees, a pledge she made again this weekend at the state GOP convention. But does the nation-state of California really have such a bloated government?

Not according to the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, an independent research group based in Palo Alto. The director, Stephen Levy, is one of the principal experts on the state's economy, and he reported in December:

"There is broad agreement that seeking efficiencies in government programs is good public policy. Yet, the data suggest that at the aggregate level California is not overstaffed relative to caseloads in the major program areas. Indeed, a stronger case can be made that public programs are being carried out with less staffing than in most other states."

In his report from last December, Levy's organization found that California – which has 38 million residents – had the third lowest number of full-time state government employees relative to the population.

California and Florida both had 103 state employees for every 10,000 residents, while Illinois had the lowest ratio at 97, the group reported. The U.S. average was 143 state employees per 10,000 residents, with California 28 percent below the national average.