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As the City Tanks: Council giving out more raises tomorrow night, when will they ever learn?

16 Feb

Tonight Chico City Council will most likely approve more salary increases for Chico PD and Fire. Trying to follow up on suggestions of outsourcing other positions to pay for these raises, I just happened to find a November article in the Chico News and Review. The author paraphrased a blog I posted regarding the effect these raises are having on the deficit, of which CouncilmemberTom Van Overbeek only recently seems to have become aware of.

From Chico CN&R, 11/20/25, https://chico.newsreview.com/2025/11/20/underfunded-chico-city-worker-pensions-addressed/

“The Chico Taxpayer Association maintains that contracts with city workers should have obligated them to pay for more of their own retirement costs, and that Van Overbeek’s motion is irresponsible from a conservative point of view. On its website it asks the councilmember: “You have signed onto contracts offering guaranteed raises and abysmally low shares of benefits costs without wondering where the money would come from to pay for these raises, or what effect the raises and underpayments would do to our CalPERS obligation. Why didn’t you ask these questions during the Measure H campaign?”

Wow, he included a response from VOB, but it’s not exactly an answer.

Van Overbeek answered that 2022’s Measure H sales tax increase primarily funded a police force “that was literally melting down,” and not intended for the UAL. “We said we were going to spend the money on cops and roads,” he said.

In this response, he does not engage the question about making employees pay more, he doesn’t even touch it. He refuses to engage the question about more employees and more raises without requiring higher shares is increasing the deficit. He also insinuates that the measure promised Measure A revenues would be used to fund “cops and roads” – it’s not legal to list specific uses for a “simple” 50+1 ballot measure. He also insists that Measure A funds are not being used to pay down the deficit – how can he promise that? Simple measures go into the General Fund.

Sacramento CN&R Author Ken Magri misstates the deficit payments at $7 million a year. That is way off, I’m pretty sure he got that figure from Artificial Intelligence. The city paid $18 million in 2023, I haven’t checked lately, but I know they go up every year. By millions. I get my figures from staffer Barbara Martin’s reports, available in the minutes from the Finance Committee Meetings.

Yes Mr. VOB, the cops are still melting down. The over-generous salaries are not getting “better” people, as evidenced in the recent revelations about police department inappropriate behavior. These salaries are tanking our town. When will they learn? When they get their ass handed to them at election time, that’s when.

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Letter to the Editor: It’s the contracts, Stupid!

9 Feb

BC asked, Why is it only the taxpayers are on the hook for the unfunded pension liability?

Good question, I wrote a letter about it!

After my last letter a friend asked, “Why is it only the taxpayers are on the hook for the unfunded pension liability?”

It’s in the contracts. Council agrees to the terms regarding salary and benefits. Council also approves the inadequate shares employees are paying toward their benefits, which has left the city wandering deeper and deeper into pension debt with CalPERS.

Year after year, Council approves the increasing annual payments toward the resulting pension deficit – $18 million in 2023 alone. Despite millions in “catch-up” payments, the deficit continues to rise, at last report, over $180 million.

And that’s how the taxpayers get left on the hook. How can we get off?

Elect council members who will negotiate taxpayer-friendly contracts. Employees should shoulder their own pensions. Instead of allowing the pension deficit to “ride the market” down the road to Perdition, set up realistic defined contributions from employees, based on the true cost of their pensions instead of Pollyanna market projections. The taxpayer (“employer”) contribution should be based on merit and length of service. Employees should be responsible for the losses as well as the gains.

Outsource jobs? The city culled positions in 2013, but here we are again. It’s the contracts.

Juanita Sumner, Chico CA

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BC: Why is it only the taxpayers are on the hook for the unfunded pension liability?

2 Feb

Thanks BC for coming over to the last post

We’re about to hire a new city manager – it’s past time to discuss the effect these outrageous salaries and benefits are having on the city budget

You brought up a lot of important points about public employee compensation. The lush salaries and benefits are not conducive to good work ethic. Instead of promising sky’s-the-limit salary and benefits off the top, Council needs to offer a reasonable starting salary and set specific metrics for performance, future salary increases and long-term benefits. And other stuff, thanks for keeping the conversation going!

You observed and I agree, “The lack of accountability and the lack of responsibility in jobs where a fixed salary is present generates a much different work ethic than incentive based compensation plans in the private sector . ” I’ll add, defined benefits plans – employer-sponsored retirement plans that promise a specific, predetermined monthly income for life after retirement, regardless of performance, and regardless of our town’s financial well being. This type of employee compensation is not only tanking our town financially, but like you said, it’s not an efficient way of guaranteeing quality performance.

A better system would be defined contributions plans. Meaning, essentially, the employees pay more for their benefits, and they shoulder the responsibility when CalTRANS tanks. I don’t pertend to be a expert in these affairs but I been studying up on it. I really don’t trust city management to give me straight answers, I look it up on The Wikipedia.

BC echoed a sentiment I’ve had for years, “Why is it only the taxpayers are on the hook for the unfunded pension liability? I believe it’s because the biggest contributors in the city council elections are the employee unions. That’s another conversation, but it has to be had before we will get any changes in the compensation scam.

I’ll say, if we had good employees, they wouldn’t be feathering their nests with all of our future. Why do we put up with it? Because we have our jobs, and our kids, and our bills to pay. We need to take some time to think about these issues so we can make informed contributions to the conversation Downtown. Especially at Election Time.

Next time, on “This Old Lady Gets the Bill… and so do YOU!”

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We’re about to hire a new city manager – it’s past time to discuss the effect these outrageous salaries and benefits are having on the city budget

26 Jan

When I heard Mark Sorensen is going to retire as of June, I realized that the dipshits on city council will be hiring a new city manager over the next four or five months. These people don’t have bargaining skills, they are too quick to give away the store. Historically, the city of Chico has always paid new hires more than the departing manager, for some dumb reason. Which, of course, raises the rest of the department head salaries all the way around, and hey, look out for that pension deficit increase.

I would think, the smarter thing to do would be to hire at a lower salary, with a reasonable promise of raises to come for a job well done. But it’s a common argument in the public sector – albeit tired and untrue – that “we” have to keep salaries competitive to attract better people. I always have to ask – and just how has that worked out for you? It sure hasn’t worked regarding Chico PD, horny bastards.

Meanwhile, Redding has hired a new city manager at less salary than their departing manager, with a significantly smaller benefits package (see letter below for the figures). Dave, check my math – I think they’re saving at least 10%, just in salary. I don’t know how this guy will work out, but I think it was smart of them to rein in their salaries, starting at the top. We’ll have to watch that.

Wow, that Tippin guy must have been roofie-ing the council coffee pot – a $589,000 total benefits package?

We’ll have to watch the upcoming conversation about our new city manager. My district reprobate, Mayor Kasey Reynolds, has told me she believes the salaries she and council have offered are reasonable and necessary to attract “good people” – and then she went and hired those pervert cops! And signed their contracts!

With the current political atmosphere, it’s hard to get people to pay attention to the nuts and bolts. So I wrote a letter about it!

In June 2024, Chico City Council granted two automatic pay raises to manager Mark Sorensen and clerk Debbie Presson. Sorensen was making $212,307.28, Presson close on his heels at $190,271.02. Each has received a 5% and a 7% raise over the last year and a half, setting them up for an extravagant retirement paid for by the taxpayers. Sorensen has announced his retirement as of June, and I expect Presson to make the same announcement shortly.

At last October’s Finance Committee meeting, Councilmember Tom van Overbeek commented he was concerned with the recent increase in Chico’s unfunded pension liability – from $117 million to $180 million over a short period – calling it “startling”. Where was his curiosity when he approved those automatic pay increases? The time is now to discuss the effect these outrageous salaries have on our pension liability. City employees pay less than 20% of their own pension cost, with management paying less than 10%. Now the same council that has approved these salary increases will hire a new manager.

Redding recently hired a new manager, with a new salary of $295,000 – a decrease from the former manager salary of $329,979. Will Chico follow Redding’s example, taking this opportunity to reel in the outrageous and ever-increasing pension deficit?

Ask Van Overbeek, Winslow, and Reynolds – they’re all up for re-election, which is when these people are usually most willing to talk.

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Ramin RealTalk: They got the pension, you got the bill!

18 Dec

Thanks to The Dude, for introducing me to Ramin RealTalk.

According to his youtube site, Ramin Ekhtiar is a loan officer located in California. And he’s even more pissed off about the pensions than I am. Go Ramin! Take a minute to listen to his post “They got the pension, you got the bill…”

https://www.youtube.com/@RaminRealTalk

I feel like I’m living in a zombie movie

16 Dec

Yes, I saw that Mark Sorensen is tucking his tail and jumping the ship that he has sailed onto the rocks. He’s been at the head of the ship for years – first, as city council member, then mayor, and finally, a very lucrative jaunt as city manager – very profitable for Mr. Sorensen, not so good for city of Chico. He will retire with 70% of his $211,000+ salary.

Meanwhile, those of us not hooked up to the public teat struggle to keep up with the tax increments, the petty but steady increases in our utility rates, and the ever-increasing “quality of life” crimes and gawdawful traffic. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a zombie movie.

Speaking of taxes, my husband and I had a heck of a time paying our latest installment of property taxes this year. It’s been a long-time tradition for me to mail our property tax payment the Monday after Thanksgiving. Never had a problem. Until this year. We always use the county website to make sure that our payment has been posted by the tax collector. This year, it just didn’t turn up, didn’t turn up. So when December 10th rolled around, my husband was finally able to contact the office – our check had not arrived, and the employee recommended we just pay it online, with a fee, of course. The county employee said that if they received our check they would send it back to us. (yeah, by way of the same post office…)

She also went on at length about what a pile of shit the post office is these days. Like I need a lecture from some sack of a county worker about how crappy the post office is.

This is asinine. You take your tax payment to the post office and hand it over to the staff, and it still can’t make it to Oroville within a week and a half?

Yes, by jiminy, it’s Christmas – and we ordered our gifts online. When my son’s gift arrived here on December 9th, we realized, the size was way off – our mistake. But Amazon has a great return process. We immediately got busy with the return process, and ordered a new item at the correct size. Wow, maybe Amazon should run the post office – we received the replacement on December 12th. The package we returned was received and posted on our account by the 15th. No fees, no fuss.

Our government is insubordinate. When you look that word up you also get “churlish” – yes, public employees are just plain rooooooood!

In these days of lawlessness and disorder, we have to stick together and hold our position. My position is, I will not spend a taxable dime in Chico, or Butte County. We actually went to Orland last week to do some last minute shopping. Orderly little town, great “antique stores”, felt safe leaving our car on the street. Yes, they have a penny sales tax, but that hardly matters when you are buying tiny trifles at the thrift store. I got some incredible vintage Christmas cards and handmade soap, less than $10. Went to the Farwood Grill and where my husband and I split a ginormous BLT – local bacon, on REAL bread. Picked up 20 lbs of mandarins, small bag of meyer lemons and a $4 dozen eggs at a local farm.

Don’t just sit there. Do something.

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Unfunded pension liability up by $60 million – van Overbeek wants to “outsource” Hey, Tom, grow a pair – let’s ask the employees to pay a rational share of their own benefits!

17 Oct

I have been asleep at the wheel. It’s that time of year – leaf management, gutter cleaning, whack and blow, etc etc. And then I got the next council agenda, and I kind of woke up out of a stupor. It was the Finance Committee report from their meeting earlier this month.

https://chico-ca.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=1180&meta_id=99060

Following a presentation from finance manager Barbara Martin, “Councilmember van Overbeek stated he is concerned that the unfunded liability number keeps growing and inquired if all employees are part of CalPERS.” The finance director answered yes. “Councilmember van Overbeek stated the UAL increase from $117 million to $180 million is a startling increase.“

I have to ask, was Van Overbeek elected yesterday? He’s on the finance committee, he never heard about the pension deficit?

Then Van Overbeek suggested outsourcing – yeah, yeah – we’ve heard that conversation about a thousand times, with no results. Sorensen said that outsourcing would cost more money in the long run. Van Overbeek still wanted to pursue it, asking staff to come up with a “breakdown” of all the departments and where there are “opportunities for outsourcing..” Here’s this guy talking about employee costs who doesn’t seem to understand how expensive staff time is, he just expects to snap his fingers and get this stuff. At this point Sorensen did his job – he told van Overbeek that this information was available in the appendix to the city budget that Van Overbeek is supposed to be familiar with.

Tom, you’re a fucking idiot! Time vampire! You have been on council long enough to participate in a number of contract agreements with various employee groups. You have signed onto contracts offering guaranteed raises and abysmally low shares of benefits costs without wondering where the money would come from to pay for these raises, or what effect the raises and underpayments would do to our CalPERS obligation? Why didn’t you ask these questions during the Measure H campaign?

And here’s the question for council and city manager Mark Sorensen – why, when we’ve had this same conversation all the way back to when Brian Nakamura was city manager and Mark Sorensen was on council, we’ve been fully aware of the pension deficit, and none of you have once suggested that employees pay a more rational share of their overly generous benefits.

Instead you’ve tried to foist an illegal Pension Obligation Bond without putting it to a vote of the taxpayers. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association had to put a cease and desist order on that. What’s your plan now?

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With revenues remaining ‘flat,’ Chico just sent over $14 million to CalPERS in “catch-up” payments – that’s where the Measure H revenues are going, just follow the bouncing dollar sign.

29 Aug

My husband and I recently took a “working” vacation – workation? We needed a new toilet for our rental, and finding the prices at Chico home improvement stores to be prohibitive, we went to Oregon to find a better deal. With school in and Summer slowly giving over to Fall, our usual motel had a cheap room for us. We got more savings at local grocery stores and produce stands. We stocked up on household stuff at Walmart, including all the type of over the counter medicines that are taxable in Chico. Shoes on SALE! at Big 5, we bought two pairs. We saved money that offset the price of the motel even further.

I’ll say, you need to do stuff for your mental health too. Every now and then, we need to get out of town, see how other people are doing things. As a Chico resident, I can tell you first hand – Chico has become an unpleasant place to shop, financially, morally, and aesthetically.

Medford, for example, has a vibrant retail sector. The stores are clean and well-run, and you can find what you need, no empty shelves. Their Winco is bigger and has a wider brand selection of various products. There are two really nice natural foods stores, with super fresh local produce. We couldn’t do the U-Pick farms this year, but we found really good apples and pears at the grocery store, for $2.50/lb.

Free parking everywhere, no kiosks, no hassle getting where you want to go.

Here’s the funny thing – while Chico is reporting flat revenues, even after a full one-cent sales tax increase, Medford reports their revenues have been on the up, up, up since COVID ended. With no state or local sales tax.

Chico made the same mistake that a Redding City Council member has called out – basing budget projections on one-time money, and then crying poormouth when the funds dry up. Specifically, American Rescue Funds. Those funds – millions – were horribly miss-spent by the city of Chico, and furthermore, included in budget projections for the future, even though they were one-time grants.

Having spent those funds like a pack of drunken sailors instead of dedicating them to needed infrastructure projects, they had some nerve to put the bite on voters to approve that one-cent sales tax. Of course they put up a simple majority measure that guaranteed the money would go into the General Fund, with no restrictions on spending.

“The ending of federal funds, like the American Rescue Plan, and a drying up of city grant money ($5.2 million) are creating a gap that could lead to dipping into the general fund for programs, including those for the homeless.”

“programs” – yeah sure! As usual, employee expenses continue to grow. According to city finance manager Barbara Martin, “On the expense side, personnel costs remain the leading driver. Unfunded pension liability continues to loom large, with the city’s payment for the upcoming year exceeding $14 million.”

Yep.

Meanwhile, “City of Medford revenues are not flat; recent trends and future projections indicate growth, though the rate has varied. While growth slowed slightly during the COVID-19 pandemic, city reports and budget adoptions show upward trends, with a significant increase projected for the upcoming 2025–2027 budget cycle…”

Medford voters will be asked to approve a Transient Occupancy Tax increase. My husband tells me Oregon’s overall TOT is higher than California. But who cares – it’s a percentage of the total room price, and the places we stay in Oregon are so much cheaper than their counterparts in California, TOT is more like a charitable donation to keep the town you’re visiting ahead of the extra infrastructural strains of tourism. I’ll say, the big, busy streets and intersections around our hotel and the retail areas we patronize are well planned, well maintained, and pedestrian friendly.

UPDATE: I looked it up – Medford has a 10.5% TOT, 9% of which goes to the city of Medford to help provide the amenities that tourists enjoy while remediating the strains of tourism, like extra traffic. Meanwhile, Chico charges 12% TOT, 10% goes to the GENERAL FUND. As you will recall, the General Fund is a grab bag with no restrictions. Again, the General Fund is looted every year for millions (this year over $14 million) to pay the unfunded liability left by the completely unrealistic shares that city employees pay for their overly generous benefits.

When we shop in Chico, I oftentimes have to sit in our truck while my husband goes into a store to safeguard tools we have to carry in the back of the truck. We’d never think of walking to do any shopping in Chico, even small grocery purchases, and we never ride our bikes in Chico anymore. People who have moved here within the last 20 years just wouldn’t get it – Chico was better than this when my husband and I were raising our family here. Now it’s gone past the pale, and I don’t know if there’s any coming back.

My prediction – they are going to try to float a bond for the sewer.

City of Chico fumbles through Warren settlement – how much is this Whack A Mole game costing us? Meanwhile, Van Overbeek says we’ll be needing more money for the massive sewer job Downtown. Sales tax revenues are flat. Where will the money come from?

19 Aug

I’ve been reading an obscure book I picked up from a cousin. The author describes the pitfalls of Democracy. He opines that a decision made by simple majority – only 50%+1 of the voters – is tyranny.

I’ll agree, but what are you going to do about tyranny when you live in tyranny? Over the last 10 years, our liberal state government has quickly and decisively chipped away at our voters’ rights, allowing simple majority decisions on tax measures. When California voters put a measure on the ballot seeking to restore the 2/3’s requirement for tax measures, our governor and his friends in the legislature went to un-precedented lengths to make sure that the voters could not stop tax increases, declaring our citizen’s initiative to be illegal and taking it off the ballot before we were allowed to vote on it.

So here we are in Tyranny, what to do, what to do. People are leaving – to those people, I say, thanks for nothing, you cowards. If all I can do is mau-mau the flak catchers, well, that’s what I’m going to do. Let’s start with the bi-weekly idiot show known as Chico City Council. The problem with Democracy, is who runs it.

https://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/city-of-chico-seeking-relief-from-some-of-the-rules-in-the-warren-v-chico/article_d87c143f-6805-4c8d-8647-511ee41f723d.html

The public has been kept out of this conversation for years. Just now we’re hearing that our city legal advisors have been incompetent. The incompetent leading the stupid (council). Just now they’re asking themselves questions like, was the settlement about the eight people named in the suit, or is every unhoused individual that shows up in town part of the “protected class” of litigants? They never asked that question in the beginning? Our $200,000+/year attorneys never asked that question?

We’ve been stuck in this mire since 2018, when Andrew Coolidge went with the liberals on council to sign the Shelter Crisis Designation. That agreement came with over $4 million, but it set us on a path that has led to millions more lost down the rabbit hole. Or let’s say, the mole hole. Council, including Coolidge and current mayor Kasey Reynolds, hired the attorneys who have misled them, and then none of them thought the logical thought – “shouldn’t I check with my own attorney to see if any of this shit is legal or makes sense? What is a ‘class’, anyway?” Even if any of them have had doubts about what any of our city attorney’s have told them, they didn’t have the balls to check into it, or even express their doubt.

The last person on council who asked the pointy questions was Kami Denlay.

Nowadays, it’s common for people to ignore court orders, even defy the orders of the President of the United States. Why didn’t our council refuse to go along with Judge England’s insanity? Because they were afraid, afraid in their little panties – Sean Morgan admitted that on his radio show. Afraid what the consequences would be for them personally. They didn’t give a shit what happened to our town.

While they diddled millions away on the lawsuit, and the not-so-clever game of Whack A Mole they’ve engaged in, they’ve left our streets and other infrastructure to go to rot. They’ve approved subdivisions in every directions, failing to address major infrastructural issues around the existing parts of town. Like the 150 year old sewer lines running under Downtown Chico, into the surrounding neighborhoods, and in one case, directly into Little Chico Creek.

Yes, the sewer line from Tin Roof Bakery was found to be dumping human waste into Little Chico Creek. That story came out because the breach was found by a Chico State class on a field trip. The city has known the sewer lines were a disaster for over 50 years, but nobody has had the guts to do anything about it. They went along spending money on jolly projects Downtown: a $4 million-plus plaza remodel that nobody wanted; lateral parking/no let’s make it parallel again/no let’s make it lateral again; Studebaker strips on the sidewalks, then tore them out to bulb the corners; most recently, “parklet” seating for bars and restaurants, along the very streets that will have to be torn completely out over the next 10 years. All paid for by the taxpayers, many of whom are still waiting for sidewalks, drainage and new sewer lines in their neighborhoods.

Why has the sewer job taken so long? Because instead of directly addressing the problem and applying for state and federal funding to help with the cost, city “stakeholders” have been engaging in a circular argument about turning the sewer job into a total remodel of Downtown Chico. Here, just a year ago, Addison Winslow addresses his happy-wanderer fantasy for a Downtown remodel.

People Always Ask Me, "How Is It Being on the Chico City Council?"
byu/addisonforchico inChicoCA

Meanwhile, city revenues are flat, two years into a full cent sales tax increase that was supposed to be the end-all of our problems. We’ve heard about businesses closing Downtown – look around the rest of town. Look at the city reports – sales tax revenues are DOWN, not up. How do sales tax revenues go down after a full cent increase?

City policies are driving shoppers away, that’s how. They keep telling us we don’t pay enough to have the kind of services that used to be what cities exist to do. How has this happened? Ask yourself – how have you voted? Have you voted?

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Chico Mayor Andrew Coolidge: “The Taxpayer Protection Act is dead on arrival if it makes it to the ballot.”

13 Dec

Yep, the city of Chico is worried about the Taxpayer Protection Act. They know it will overturn the unconstitutional sales tax increase they passed with only 52.79% voter approval. So concerned that they held a “special” off-schedule Finance Committee meeting. City Manager Mark Sorensen needed a recommendation for next Tuesday’s council meeting.

The recommendation he was looking for was to spend $100,000 writing a new measure for the 2024 ballot. That’s in addition to money they’ve spent polling the public. Armed with their polls, they plan to make some changes – Sorensen said they will consider adding a 10 year sunset clause. When I asked for confirmation of that statement he emphasized “consider“, as though we are spoiled children asking for another helping of pudding.

I like Sean Morgan – he can be charming and personable. But when he said “$100,000 is NOTHING to secure $24 million…” I realized he is not qualified for the position. Morgan is too given to hysteria, he’s too led by staff (he now calls Sorensen “Skipper”), and he changes his mind and flakes under pressure.

Years ago, in the same room, when Sorensen was still on council, and Orme was manager, both Sorensen and Morgan said they wouldn’t support a simple measure, they wanted a 2/3’s measure, Morgan saying he wanted the voters to make the decision. They didn’t want to take the heat! Now he’s willing to throw down another (at least) $100,000 to save Measure H? Think Sean – we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you’d come up with a better measure and called for 2/3’s approval.

Mayor Andrew Coolidge, always the idiot, declared gleefully that the TPA “is dead on arrival if it does make the ballot…” Sorensen confirmed that a judge had agreed to hear the governor’s lawsuit to keep the TPA off the ballot, but agreed with Morgan – “we can’t take that chance...”

They want to spend $100,000 on a do-over. I say NO. First of all, measure H received less than 53% approval. Second, sales tax receipts are still going down. Despite their Pollyanna projections, people have not recovered from their imposed COVID restrictions, inflation is a real thing, and taxes on everything just add gas to the fire. Newsom’s ridiculous projections – like the city of Chico claiming they will get $24 million off a one cent sales tax – resulted in a $68 BILLION deficit.

Chico is in trouble because of poor decisions. Look how they’re spending the Camp Fire and COVID emergency money. And this decision – $100,000 is literally NOTHING to these people. New hires at over $100,000/year, increasing the police and fire budgets around every corner, skating rink operates at a loss every year, another remodel for Downtown – they don’t have the sense they were born with, as far as I’m concerned.

They’re desperate for this measure because the city is drowning in bad decisions. A new sales tax measure is a bad decision, and we’ll pay for it. Let your council rep know, you support the TPA, and why. Tell them you won’t support another sales tax measure, and why. Write a letter to the paper, I plan to.

Dead on arrival? What kind of way is that to talk about a measure drafted by the people?

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