SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Pete Wilson's order to roll back some affirmative action programs last year triggered a peculiar reaction from several state agencies -- they established affirmative action plans aimed at recruiting whites and men.

After years of targeting minorities and women, the state's new standard for hiring goals set by the governor suddenly meant that whites and men were underrepresented in a number of job categories.

The state Franchise Tax Board, which processes income tax returns, is one of the state agencies that then adopted new affirmative action plans calling for the hiring of more whites and men.

Under the goals and timetables set last year, the Franchise Tax Board would add 45 whites and 95 men in the position of typist over the next 10 years.

But Jim Shepherd, Franchise Tax Board spokesman, said new data and directives from the State Personnel Board caused the agency to revise the plan this year. Hiring more whites and men is no longer a goal.

"Last year they asked for all underrepresented groups," which in some agencies included whites and men, said Shepherd.

"This year it's those groups that have been traditionally underrepresented."

The existence of state affirmative action plans that targeted the hiring of more whites and men was revealed this month in a study by Michael Lynch of the Pacific Research Institute, a conservative think tank in San Francisco.

"I think the State Personnel Board finds this somewhat embarrassing," said Lynch.

Ted Edwards, State Personnel Board affirmative action manager, said he has seen Lynch's study and disagrees with some of the characterizations and conclusions. But he does not dispute the accuracy of the data.

Lynch said affirmative action plans to hire more whites and men were adopted by four other state departments: Corrections, Social Services, Education, and Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

"While only a few departments are currently setting hiring goals for whites and men, this could easily change in the future as groups representing the interests of whites and men in the state's civil service are founded," Lynch wrote in the conclusion of his study. "There is already one such group, the European Correctional Workers Association, which is currently the fastest-growing employee organization in state service."

This may be an overstatement. Like the Franchise Tax Board, the other departments that adopted goals and timetables for hiring more whites and men are apparently revising the plans.

None of this shuffling of hiring goals deals with a common complaint from advocates for women and minorities, however. White men hold most of the top-paying executive jobs in state government.

The order issued by Wilson last year, who made affirmative action one of the main issues of his unsuccessful presidential campaign, stems from the view that many affirmative action programs go beyond existing law.

A series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in recent years have begun to place limits on affirmative action programs. Among them are Wygant vs. Jackson Board of Education (1986), City of Richmond vs. J.R. Croson Co. (1989) and Adarand Constructors vs. Pena (1995).

An initiative on the November ballot, Proposition 209, would escalate the trend by prohibiting racial and gender preferences in state and local government hiring and contracting and public education.

Wilson's executive order eliminated dozens of state affirmative action advisory councils based on race and gender. They were replaced with equal-opportunity groups focusing on outreach and recruitment, not goals and timetables for hiring.

Importantly, the executive order also shifted the basis for determining who is underrepresented in a state work force of about 194,000 employees.

The state had been trying to make its work force match the percentage of women and racial and ethnic minorities in the general labor force based on the most recent census.

In California, the general labor force is about 60 percent white, 24 percent Latino, 6 percent black, 6 percent Asian, 2 percent Filipino, and the rest are American Indian, Pacific Islander and others.

Wilson's order changed the standard to the "relevant" labor force. This is the pool of persons in the area who are qualified for the job.

For example, among state engineers the old goal would have been 24 percent Latino. The new standard would be based on the number of Latino engineers in the geographical area from which most job applicants would be expected.

It's the shift to this "relevant" labor force standard that caused the Franchise Tax Board and the other departments to conclude that whites and men were underrepresented.

More than a year before Wilson's order, the State Personnel Board had already decided that Wygant and other cases meant that the state would have to shift to a relevant labor force standard to comply with the law.

"The only impact (from the governor's order) on us was to probably pop us maybe a year earlier than we would have done anyway," said C. Lance Barnett, State Personnel Board executive officer. "The good news is that we had started a year before and had much of the machinery in place."

By last fall, the board had made comparisons with the relevant labor force in 3,500 occupational specialties. Barnett said 97 percent of the state work force is in compliance with the new standard.

With 11 percent of state jobs, blacks were overrepresented under the old standard. Whites were slightly underrepresented with 58 percent of the jobs. The most underrepresented group were Latinos, who held about 17 percent of state jobs.

But while Latinos are 24 percent of the general labor force, they are only about 15 percent of those with high school degrees. The new relevant labor force standard accounts for factors like this, which is one reason the state is only 3 percent out of compliance.

In addition to changing hiring goals, Wilson's order also required the California Department of Transportation to drop the goal of giving 20 percent of contracts in federally funded projects to firms owned by women and minorities. Wilson set a new goal of 10 percent, the federal minimum.

Jim Drago, Caltrans spokesman, said the agency had been meeting the old contracting goal of 20 percent. In the first year after Wilson's executive order, he said, firms owned by minorities and women received 15.3 percent of federally funded contracts, worth $110 million.

Typically, the state deals with contractors, who use subcontractors to meet the affirmative action goals. Caltrans rejects bids from contractors who do not meet the goal or show a good faith effort to achieve it.

In the year ending March 1995, Caltrans rejected the low bid for 32 contracts because the goals for minorities and women were not met. Taking higher bids from contractors who met the goals added a total of $1.9 million to the 32 contracts.

Wilson wanted to eliminate the goals for contracts funded by the state without federal money. The goals call for 15 percent to firms owned by minorities, 5 percent to women-owned firms and 3 percent to firms owned by disabled veterans.

But the goals for state-funded contracts were enacted by legislation in 1988 and cannot be overturned by executive order.

In August 1995, Wilson filed a lawsuit to eliminate the state contracting goals and several other affirmative action provisions. Daniel Kolkey, Wilson's legal secretary, said the lawsuit is based on the trend of recent court decisions.

"I guess the real issue is whether racial classifications that call for proportional representation can be justified under the constitution when you have made no finding that there was discrimination in any government agency," said Kolkey.

Seeking a speedy resolution, Wilson filed the lawsuit in the state Court of Appeal, which rejected the move and referred the suit to a Superior Court in Sacramento. The American Civil Liberties Union and other opponents unsuccessfully tried to shift the suit to federal court.

A hearing on Wilson's lawsuit has been scheduled Oct. 25 by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Thomas Cecil.

Mr. Lynch is a fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. He is the author of a forthcoming study on affirmative action in California's civil service.