BUDGET DAY PLUS 34 -- Today, a reminder of Reason Number 2,332,716 of how state government differs from the private sector: even urgent things happen slowly.

Today, the actual policy issues leading to the budget stalemate have taken a back seat to the headaches of implementing Governor Schwarzenegger's decree to save money on the state employee payroll.

And the news: officials say they still don't know to whom the order applies... and even if they did, others say it can't be implemented in time to actually save the state money.

As you may remember, the governor's executive order on Thursday fired a number of temporary state workers on the spot, and suspended all but federal minimum wage of the salary for permanent workers for the pay period that ends August 31.

But how many workers are we talking about? No one knows.

As of this afternoon, the governor's staff has no final numbers on either the total number of folks given pink slips last week or the total number of folks who could lose all but $6.55 of their salaries by month's end. The original estimate of about 10,000 layoffs has not been updated -- partly, it appears, because various state agencies were allowed to protect temp and intermittent workers who are involved in public safety or other critical services.

[UPDATE, 3:21 pm -- New info from the governor's office pegs the total number of pink slips issued last week at 10,133.]

The governor's order also allowed various agencies to exempt workers from the minimum wage requirement, provided that cabinet secetaries appointed by Schwarzenegger responded with a list of exempt employees by midday Friday.

But the list isn't complete. In fact, some state agencies had managers still feverishly working this past weekend trying to figure out who would get a full salary, and who wouldn't. The lack of specifics was a particular sticking point this morning during a Senate hearing called to assess the governor's money-saving action.

"It hasn't been finalized yet," said Fred Klass of the state Department of Finance when asked the number of employees exempt from the minimum wage order.

"Was there planning for this?" asked Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter), the chair of the committee. The answer to the question was yes, but even so it should be noted that while the executive order is officially only four days old, it was publicized in draft form 12 days ago.

Meantime, Schwarzenegger administration officials professed to themselves be perplexed by Controller John Chiang's declaration that the state's payroll system is too antiquated to deal with the temporary salary reductions of thousands of state employees. Chiang's staff told the committee that such reprogramming would take months, not weeks.

And again refuting the governor's rationale for the payroll cuts, Chaing told senators, "We will not run out of money."

Even with all the uncertainty that remains, there are at least two things we do know at this point. First, the governor's staff says that the workers laid off last week were the only ones who will be; the rest of those non-full timers appear to be safe.

And second, the window for a budget deal that avoids Wall Street borrowing is about to close. Both in information provided in an interview last week with Controller Chiang... and confirmed today by the governor's staff... the first step toward borrowing cash through an expensive "revenue anticipation warrant" will have to be taken next week. That's when bankers will want the state to agree to millions of dollars in so-called "credit enhancements" which are necessary to get the actual loan (estimated to be about $10 billion).

And even if the budget is enacted and the loan itself is never taken out, the state would still be on the hook for those early credit fees.

With the future of the California Lottery still under discussion in this dismal budget season, one state legislator is pitching a way to increase lottery sales: gas giveaways.

Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter) said today that he'd like to see lottery officials take a page from the playbook of other states, where lottery prizes now include free gas cards.

"As we look for ways to think 'outside the box' to make the lottery attractive to new players," Florez wrote in a letter to California Lottery director Joan Borucki, "this is one idea that should be given serious and prompt consideration."

Florez was apparently inspired by a story in today's edition of The New York Times chronicling a free gas giveway -- for life-- now being offered as a prize by the Florida Lottery. At least four other states are also now dangling gas giveaways as prizes for lottery winners.

Legislation to change how, and possibly where, new Indian casinos are built in California cleared its first hurdle today at the state Capitol.

For years, the most controversial part of the tribal gaming process has been casinos proposed for land that either isn't an ancestral reservation... or land that the federal government hasn't yet recognized as part of a tribe's reservation. Critics have derided such proposals as examples of "reservation shopping," accusing tribes and their deep-pocketed investors of choosing locations solely based on how much money can be made.

The legislation in question, SB 1695, would change the way new casinos are approved, by prohibiting the governor from negotiating with any tribe whose casino land hasn't yet been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Interior.

(A quick explainer to those who don't follow this issue much: federal law lays out a long process for non-Indian land to become a reservation. It also requires a tribe to negotiate a formal gaming agreement, known as a compact, with the governor of the state before opening a casino.)

Governor Schwarzenegger has negotiated a number of casino compacts with Indian tribes since he took office, but his most controversial deals have seemed to be ones where the land hadn't yet secured a federal OK. Most notable on this list: the long saga of the two tribes wanting to build side-by-side casinos in Barstow... even though the tribes' reservations are in another part of the state. Schwarzenegger agreed to the casinos long before the feds had ruled on the proposal; earlier this year it was rejected.

The bill, authored by Sen. Dean Florez (D-Shafter), simply says that the governor can't negotiate a formal compact until the feds have had their say. The current version of the legislation is notably more tame than the original, which would have essentially banned any tribe from opening a casino on land away from its ancestral home... presumably even if that tribe no longer has a reservation (and many don't).

The bill sailed out of the Senate Governmental Organization committee this afternoon, which Florez chairs (its one dissenting vote: Sen. Pat Wiggins, a Democrat whose northern California district includes one of the tribes that wanted to go to Barstow).

A spokesperson for Schwarzenegger said the guv won't take a position on the bill until it reaches his desk.

If the Legislature sends it to him, it certainly puts him in an interesting position: if he signs it, it would seem to imply that some mistakes were made in the past. And it would seemingly derail secret negotiations he might currently be conducting with some tribes (though there's no official confirmation that any casno negotiations are even underway).

But if he vetoes it, critics of the rapid expansion of Indian gambling will say the governor is ignoring the plight of communities that don't want casinos, and that he's being inconsistent with his earlier pronouncements about the siting of new tribal gambling facilities.