Under California’s new budget, “university employees are facing unpaid furloughs.”

They would join California’s 230,000-plus state workers who will continue to be forced to take off three unpaid days per month through June 2010.

The furloughs equate to roughly a 14% pay cut for state employees. California’s largest public employee union, angered by the furloughs, is currently polling its membership about a strike.

California is one of more than a dozen states in which government workers were asked to accept furloughs, pay freezes or pay cuts.

In New York, meanwhile, most state employees received 3 percent base pay increases this year, with many pocketing added increases in longevity pay and downstate differentials.  A plan by the governor to reduce the state payroll by offering $20,000 retirement bonuses to 4,500 workers appears to be stalled, along with the governor’s modest pension restructuring proposal.

A 14 percent pay cut for New York State employees would save about $1.6 billion next year.