Only days after an Alameda County Superior Court ruled that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lacks authority to furlough employees of special fund agencies, including the Medical Board of California, a San Francisco County Superior Court issued a contrary opinion today saying the governor acted legally in furloughing Medical Board staff and shifting the agency’s funding to other state programs.

CMA’s lawsuit argues that the furlough is illegal because it renders the medical board incapable of carrying out its statutory mandates to license physicians, regulate the practice of medicine and enforce the Medical Practice Act.

CMA is reviewing the decision and is seriously considering an appeal.

“Before California’s physicians filed this lawsuit, the medical board had a backlog of more than 700 license applications that forced doctors to wait for months to get their licenses approved because staff who could have been processing them were on furloughs,” says CMA President J. Brennan Cassidy, M.D.

In addition to taking away staff, the Governor redirected $6 million in medical board funds to help close the budget shortfall. By statute, the sole source of funds available to the medical board comes from physician license fees and other user fees that are mandated to be spent for medical board purposes. The medical board takes no money from the General Fund and does not depend on the state to support its mandate.

“We don’t think it’s legal or justified for the state to take fees that physicians pay to support licensing and disciplinary actions and use them for other state programs,” says Dr. Cassidy. “Taking that money and instituting the furloughs have greatly hampered the work of the Medical Board and undercut patient safety and access to medical care for all Californians.”

The case could ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court with other furlough cases that have drawn mixed rulings from lower courts. The Schwarzenegger administration filed a petition last week to transfer seven furlough appeals to the California Supreme Court for quick resolution.

Contact: Samantha Pellon, 916/551-2872 or spellon@cmanet.org.