As the contentious budget stalemate plods on in Sacramento, with recent announcements of stop-work orders and tens of thousands of layoffs, local representatives are starting to say they should shoulder some of the burden.

A plan to address the state's $42 billion budget deficit has seemingly stalled in the state Senate after days of marathon sessions left the package one vote shy of passage. Consequently, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced this week the state would begin the process of laying off 20,000 employees effective July 1 and would order work stoppages on 276 projects throughout the state in a desperate attempt to slow the state's fiscal bleeding.

With the state already having instituted mandatory work furloughs and pay cuts, local representatives state Sen. Patricia Wiggins and Assemblyman Wesley Chesbro said this week it would only be fair for legislators to consider shouldering some of the burden in a show of sacrifice and solidarity.

Asked if she would consider supporting a pay cut for legislators or their sacrificing the per diems -- the $170 they are paid by the state for every day they are in session -- for the duration of the budget stalemate, Wiggins said the Legislature has already taken a hit, but that more should be considered.

”It's only proper, and fair, that members of the Legislature consider shouldering our share of the burden -- we're making reductions in the Senate's own budget, for example, but we should consider other options as well,” Wiggins said in a statement released Wednesday.

Chesbro had a similar take.

”I think that would be absolutely fair if everyone else is taking a reduction,” Chesbro said of taking a pay cut during an interview Tuesday with Eureka's KINS Radio, adding that he would both personally look into the option and encourage his colleagues to do the same.

According to a list provided by the State Department of Finance, the governor's order will halt work on three Humboldt County projects with an estimated value of more than $40 million, meaning less work for local construction crews.

A $1.75 million project at Fortuna Elementary School has been stopped, as well as an almost $16 million project to revamp the interchange between U.S. Highway 101 and State Route 36. But, the largest local project to be shelved was $23.1 million in state funds for a North Coast Integrated Watershed Management Plan. One of Humboldt's neighbors to the south, Willits in Mendocino County, also saw the state halt work this week on $1 million in wastewater treatment plant upgrades.

But the largest worry in the state, that of mass layoffs of state employees, seems to have spared Humboldt County for the most part, at least so far.

The State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will take the largest brunt of the layoffs, according to Lynelle Jolley, a spokeswoman for the State Personnel Administration Department, adding that corrections is by far the largest general fund-dependent department in the state.

Up at Pelican Bay State Prison in Del Norte County, spokesman Lt. Ken Thomas said it's too early to say how many of the prison's 1,700 employees will be affected, but said it's unlikely the prison will escape the layoffs unscathed.

Thomas said there are 67,000 employees in the state's corrections department, and that 13,000 -- or just under 20 percent -- of them are expected to receive layoff notices. If the layoffs are applied proportionally throughout the state's prisons, that means Pelican Bay Prison could lose almost 350 employees.

”Although we've not received anything from Sacramento identifying any specific positions, to think Pelican Bay would go through a process like that without anybody being affected is unlikely,” Thomas said.

Back in Humboldt County, most agencies said it's too early to tell, but that they are looking to escape this round of layoffs unscathed.

”We have not heard anything about layoffs yet from the personnel administration -- it has not been passed down to our department,” said Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant. “We are in a wait-and-see mode.”

Jolley said two departments that definitely won't be touched by layoffs are the Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Highway Patrol, both of which are considered revenue-generating agencies and are financially self-sufficient.

But Wiggins cautioned that state workers aren't the only ones facing layoffs, and that the governor's decision to shut down 276 infrastructure projects means the loss of tens of thousands of construction jobs.

”That's 65,000 good-paying construction jobs in California -- gone,” she said. “One vote could turn that around. The governor says that he will lay off 20,000 state workers if we do not have a budget. One vote could turn that around. These are Californians who are out of work as a direct result of us not having a state budget.”

Times-Standard staff writers John Driscoll, Sean Garmire, Thadeus Greenson, Donna Tam and Erin Tracy contributed to this report.p