Archive | January, 2020

Yeats: What rough beast, it’s hour come round at last, slouches toward Chico to be elected?

3 Jan

The other day I wrote this post

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2019/12/31/city-of-chico-double-ends-us-on-our-utilities-collecting-utility-tax-on-our-total-bill-while-adding-franchise-fees-to-our-rates/

about how the city inflates our utility bills with franchise fees and then turns around and adds 5% Utility User’s Tax to the total. The city takes over $7 million a year in UUT, from our PG&E, water and landlines, after adding a franchise fee to our PG&E rates.  They also add franchise fees to our garbage and Comcast bills. In addition to constant rate hikes, none of which the city of Chico has ever protested, we have two taxes, both fairly well hidden. 

In this way the city of Chico took advantage of people who had been through a horror story known as “The Camp Fire”.  I asked city finance manager Scott Dowell just exactly how much the city of Chico profited from the tragedy, and I was shocked with the total.

“Utility Users Tax receipts exceeded budget by $99,738 for the year ended June 30, 2019.”

That’s only seven months after the fire. $100,000 in seven months – wow. That’s about $14,000/month. I’m assuming most of the evacuees had relocated out of Chico by June, but I also believe we can assume that most of this “boost” came from those people who were still driving cars with the rear-end lights melted off. 

I didn’t live in Paradise but I saw stuff that changed my life. It changed the way I feel about Chico, a  town I’ve known since I was born, and lived in most of my adult life. I saw an ugly side of Chico – city management – and I’ll never feel the same way about this town again. 

Orme, Constantin and Dowell need to go. Schwab, Stone, Ory and Morgan are at the end of their terms, and I think it’s time to show them the door as well. But what candidates do we have to choose from? Good question.

Letter: Your tax hike went to raises, pensions

1 Jan

I saw in my stats that somebody read this old post – and I realized, it was worth a re-run. 

In 2012, Chico voters rejected Measure J, the cell phone tax proposed by council member and former mayor Ann Schwab. I didn’t take a poll, but something I heard from people when I spoke to them about it was outrage – “what does the city of Chico have to do with my cell phone service?”

Good question. Answer: NOTHING, it was just an outright grab into your wallets.  I hope people are still asking good questions, because what Joseph Neff is saying here, in a 6 year old letter, is still true. The majority of our budget goes toward salaries, benefits, and now, the employees’ pension liability.

http://www.chico.ca.us/finance/documents/2019-20CityAnnualFINALBudget.pdf

Below Joseph Neff reminds us, even well paid private sector positions do not usually include pension, but we are all forced to pay outrageous benefits to public employees.  And he offers a solution – I bold-faced the last paragraph, cut it out and send it to Chico City Council, and then you might want to send a copy to your county supervisor. 

This letter still stands, so I’m running it again. Thank you Joseph Neff, wherever you are.

Letter: Your tax hike went to raises, pensions

Chico Enterprise-Record

POSTED:   12/06/2013 10:41:12 PM PST

Conservative voters realized that Gov. Jerry Brown’s sales tax increases would not be used to benefit taxpayers but to provide lawmakers a raise and to protect the golden pensions of public employees.

As a 45-year career employee with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering and an MBA, my two private-sector pensions are $15,000 yearly. Only two of six career employers had pensions during the past 50 years of plant closures from union strikes, global competition and company moves to right to work, more business friendly states.

None of my wife’s 30-year employers, including 11 as a teacher and 20 as either a degreed hospital medical records administrator, or as an advanced degreed nuclear medicine technologist supervisor, had pensions. Only one had a 401(k) plan. That is typical of the private sector for degreed private sector employees since the 1950s.

Public employee pensions should be halved to civilian levels, delayed to age 65, never adjusted for inflation, and based only on the first $50,000 of pre-retirement income. A $25,000 maximum annual public employee pension would be fair since savings and Social Security will provide the needed additional two-thirds of retirement spending.

— Joseph J. Neff, Corning

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