Faculty and staff at Chico State University can expect to be paid, even if California continues not to have a budget, but the amount in those checks could come as a genuine shock.

A letter distributed by state Controller Steve Westly said salaries will be paid to California State University employees.

However, that promise comes with a substantial "but."

Westly warned the amount of money in those pay envelopes may be severely less than the recipients anticipate.

"In Jarvis vs. Westly, the court also ruled that state employees who do not work overtime should be paid minimum wage once it is feasible to do so," said Westly's letter.

"That is not fair, but it is now the law. We will continue to pay regular salaries until my department has made and tested the required programming changes," continued the letter.

Colleen Bentley-Adler, public information officer for CSU Chancellor Charles Reed, quipped, should things go that far, "I'll be making the same amount of money as the chancellor."

"It sounds so democratic somehow," laughingly commented Dennis Graham, Chico State's vice president for business and finance.

Graham said the controller had mentioned the minimum wage possibility in the past.

The controller's letter, which came out this week, predicted it would be as late as September before the necessary computer programs were in place to make all the minimum-wage checks.

If it takes that long, according to Graham, then it couldn't impact salary checks before the ones that would be issued in October.

He predicted, if that happened, "miraculously" there would be a budget approved by "Oct. 15."

Graham said the appearance of minimum-wage checks would have a real impact.

"I just think it would put such intense public pressure on the governor's office, that they would have to pass an interim budget at least. They would need to pass even a temporary budget," said the vice president.

While salary checks appear to be reasonably secure for the Chico State faculty and staff, payments to vendors, merchants, contractors, utilities, or any other debt incurred after July 1 will not be paid until there is a state budget in place.

Graham said even that fact has something of a limitation because he anticipates the checks that will be issued July 1, and also the checks that should go out July 30, will not be affected by this ruling.

Also, any purchase order issued before July 1 will be paid on schedule because money to pay that bill was "encumbered" in the budget year that ends Monday.

All "capital projects," including such things at Chico State as furniture for the newly finished Yolo Hall and the trenching project to place new computer connections around campus, will not be affected by the no-payment ruling.

Graham said capital projects are funded by bond money that has nothing to do with the state budget and are exempted from the controller's ruling.