I found that wikipedia article pretty interesting. In particular that "over 40,000 public employees in the Bay Area alone earned over $200,000 in 2009." To be fair when you look at the source data: http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay-area?appSession=1633...

You'll see that many of the top paid state employees are doctors, or policemen/firefighters who get paid a ton of overtime.

But you'll also notice things like the director of IT for Alameda County was paid 430,312 with a 266,760 base salary. Where as the direct of IT for San Mateo country had a base salary of 175,775 and had pay around to 330K. Which is probably market for someone like that in the Bay area, but sure seems a lot for a government position.

I think it is reasonable that if salaries go up in a good year, that salaries should go down in a bad year. I'd be interested in seeing the change in government employee pay over time relative to tax revenue.