I’ve been busy with a lot of stuff, but like I promised, I wrote a letter to the ER about Robert Koyasaki’s “Pension Time Bomb” series. I’m embarrassed – I mis-spelled Siedle through the entire post, I have to go back and fix that, sorry. But I think I got a good letter out of it – you tell me.
Cities across America, like Chico, are unable to provide basic services because all the money is going to pay for pensions. No matter how much money the taxpayers pour into this system, pension expense will continue to outstrip revenues.
Salaries are excessive. Chico city management positions pay four to five times the median income.
The city pays too little, with employees contributing even less. Until the Public Employee Pension Reform Act of 2013, management employees paid nothing toward their pensions. Now they pay between 10 and 15% of total cost, the total payment being 20 – 30%.
Pension deficit is created by agencies and employees that don’t pay enough on payroll. The excess becomes the Unfunded Actuarial Liability. Employees contribute nothing toward the UAL, which is over 65% of total employee cost. The California Rule mandates that the pension deficit must be paid ahead of everything else. For example, our finance director says we have no money to fix streets, but in July he will make the annual $9 million (and growing) payment toward the UAL.
A tax measure would be spit on the griddle in this situation. Here are my suggestions:
- Negotiate lower salaries for management, or hire somebody else
- Get all new employees off CalPERS, switch to 401Ks
- Pay more in payroll, which would mean, ALL employees would have to pay more, even based on their current shares.
- Pre-PEPRA employees should have to pay toward the UAL, or “catch up” payments – they should pay the same shares they pay toward the payroll portion.
Juanita Sumner, Chico CA
Chico Taxpayers Association 
👍👍👍
On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 12:04 PM Chico Taxpayers Association wrote:
> Juanita Sumner posted: “I’ve been busy with a lot of stuff, but like I > promised, I wrote a letter to the ER about Robert Koyasaki’s “Pension Time > Bomb” series. I’m embarrassed – I mis-spelled Siedle through the entire > post, I have to go back and fix that, sorry. But I think I g” >
Hey Juanita,
I guess you notice, Wolcott is back to running only 3 or 4 letters a day, after running as many as 10 in previous days. There’s no consistency down at the ER.
Yeah, thanks for noticing that – but I promised Wolcott I wouldn’t complain about the way he runs his paper anymore.
A great first step would be for Chico to declare chapter 9 and then adopt the changes Wisconsin has implemented. There’s even more the city council could and should do but won’t.
But eventually something is going to be done because the salaries, pensions and other post-employment benefits are ridiculously unsustainable.
Here’s some information worth a read http://chicotaxes.home.blog
Thanks Dave, keep up the good work.