If you're lucky enough to still have a job in this economy, for many unpaid furloughs and/or pay cuts are the price you pay for continuing to get that paycheck. That's true for California workers too who are forced to take one day a month off unpaid.

The furloughs are necessary to help save money in a state that is notoriously profligate. However, the San Jose Mercury-News reports that there's a small class of state employees that are being forced to take furloughs that are actually costing the state money -- and no I'm not talking about ticket-writing CHiPs.

The governor, in the interest of fairness and simplicity, has insisted that his unpaid time off policy, which covers about 235,000 workers, be implemented across the board. So that means no exceptions even for the one state agency — a team of nearly 1,400 employees who review claims for federal disability payments — funded entirely by the feds.

Sending those employees home one day a month means the state will forgo about $10 million — or 5 percent of the agency's $210 million annual budget — from Washington, without saving state government any money. Meanwhile, it's taking the agency longer to process claims, delaying disability benefits at a time when such requests are soaring.

This is idiocy. The goal is to save money, not to make sure no one's jealous or has their feelings hurt. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger again proves that kids shouldn't take steroids.

"To solve a budget crisis that reached monumental proportions, I was forced to make some tough choices, including furloughing state employees," the governor wrote. The letter did not acknowledge that furloughing the disability agency's workers would not shave state expenses because all its costs are paid by the federal government.

Other state officials said all employees need to be treated equally.

"There's an equity issue there," said John Wagner, the Schwarzenegger administration's director for the California Department of Social Services.

Wagner is wrong. It's not an equity issue -- it's a stupidity issue.