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ER editor stumps for a tax increase, time to write those letters!

The ER recently published a very insulting editorial.

Editorial: Discussion of a tax could loom for Chico

First of all, Editor acts as though he’s bringing up the subject of a tax – where has he been? The city has been kicking this idea around for years now, and has spent 10’s of thousands of taxpayers dollars on consultants.

That’s the real story – spending taxpayer money on tax measures is illegal. Wake up Mr. “News”(?) editor.

Not one word about the pensions. Not one word about the garbage tax money that was just “stolen” (Karl Ory’s word) to pay salaries, benefits and pensions for non-street maintenance personnel. Just a not-very-clever ploy for bringing the “t-word” out of the closet. As if it’s some novel new idea, being suggested by a gosh-darn good old citizen!

Well, here’s what needs to be brought out of the closet – the Stanford Institute pension tracker.

https://www.pensiontracker.org/agencySummary.php?agency_name=City+of+Chico&id=1390&search=Search

This link covers the city of Chico, but you can find other local entities, like Chico Area Recreation District (CARD). This site blew my mind – what we have here, essentially, is two sets of books, one that reflects reality, and one that reflects what Staff has been telling us. Staff has been reporting the “actuarial” figure as our total deficit – $127,864,195 as of 2017. The actuarial figure assumes a high return on the stock market, and that hasn’t been happening. Our market deficit – what we owe – is over $400,000,000. That’s what we owe employees, minus our “assets”. Study the chart yourself – it’s outrageous.

I really appreciated Steve Wolfe’s kind words, so I wrote another letter to the paper. I included a link to this blog, so people can see the pension tracker for themselves. I hope to hear more people expressing some outrage over this issue, I think we can beat this thing before it gets out of the barn.

I keep hearing a popular chant from high school football running through my head – Push ’em back, push ’em back, waaaaaay back!

When we discuss the “t-word”, there are two other words that need to be included – “pension deficit” – the difference between what public employees want to get in retirement, and what they expect to pay. Chico employees expect to get 70 – 90 percent of salaries over $100,000 a year while paying less than $10,000/year into the system themselves.

CalPERS promised to fund the deficit with stock market investments but has failed miserably, and now expects the taxpayers to pay billions. While Chico staffers cry poormouth and promise to use a new tax for infrastructure, they siphon millions a year out of “dedicated” funds – like the street maintenance and sewer funds – toward their pension deficit. City leaders told us they’d fix our streets with the garbage tax but recently directed this year’s takings to the general fund to pay unrelated salaries, benefits, and pensions.

According to the Stanford Institute, the city of Chico carries over $418,000,000 total pension debt. That’s $11,329 per household, the majority of whom survive on less than $43,000/year. Staff says they don’t have enough money to maintain our streets and other infrastructure, while they funnel millions into the “Pension Stabilization Trust” every year.

Editor warns, “If that one tax measure disappoints, the electorate will likely slam the door on future ones for a long time.” Why be stupid enough to approve a tax measure when we’ve already been disappointed? Would private sector employees get away with this? No. Time for staff to pay their own pensions.

Find sources at chicotaxpayers.com

Tags: Chico Enterprise Record

Comments 3 Comments
Categories Chico garbage franchise, Chico pension deficit, Chico sales tax increase, Our News Media Sucks, trash tax Chico, Uncategorized

Local media continues to spread the Big Lies – arm yourselves with the facts and fight back!

3 Jun

I was using the May 9 issue of the News and Review to wipe out the inside of a peanut butter jar (another time, another blog…) when I noticed an editorial I hadn’t read. It was offensive to see that these “journalists” are still pumping the city’s bullshit about being overwhelmed by the Camp Fire evacuees. That is one of the Big Lies they are using to get a sales tax increase, and I’m sick of hearing it from both the print and tv media. We have no journalism in Chico.

So I wrote a letter about it!

(“Chico needs a lifeline” 5/9/19) Chico has not grown by 20 percent in the wake of the camp fire. Like I said in my last letter, the figures the city is using to support the assumption that Camp Fire evacuees are placing a strain on city services are all estimates.. Go out at rush hour – the traffic impacts we suffered in the weeks immediately following the fire were temporary. Today there are over 200 houses for sale within the city. Housing prices spiked remarkably immediately following the fire because desperate buyers were very competitive, but prices are now back to 2017 levels.

The city’s financial problem is the pension liability. Ask public employees to pay more of their own pensions. For example, the city manager gets over $225,000 in salary, over $80,000 in benefits, and 70% of his highest year’s salary in pension at age 55. He pays 11% of his salary toward that pension. The taxpayers are asked to pick up the rest of his tab, including an IRC 457. If he is sincere about “living within our means” he needs to pay more of his own pension – new hires pay 50 %, why are “classic” employees still paying so little?

Join the conversation at chicotaxpayers.com

Juanita Sumner, Chico

I wish some of you would write – I know there are those of you out there who think they can’t write letters. All you have to do is arm yourselves with the facts, the letter will write itself.

Read Mark Orme’s contract here:

Click to access OrmeEmploymentAgreement10-2017.pdf

See his salary and benefits break down here:

https://publicpay.ca.gov/Reports/Cities/City.aspx?entityid=79&year=2017

Have some fun – search the words “pension,” “liability,” and “deficit” in the budget and see how much money they pour into the pensions every year:

Click to access 2018-19CityAnnualFINALBudget.pdf

Speak up! Maybe we can stop this tax measure before they spend any more TAXPAYER money on it.

Tags: Mark Orme Chico City Manager

Comments 2 Comments
Categories CalPERS, Chico pension deficit, Chico revenue measure, Chico sales tax increase, Uncategorized

Assistant City Manager Chris Constantin lays out his scheme to “shoot (taxpayer) money into the economy at the time the economy is tanking…”

14 May

Just last month Chico City council listened to a consultant’s pitch about placing a revenue measure on the 2020 ballot. They voted to hire the woman, from the same firm that has passed two school bonds, EMC, of Oakland. They also approved a $60,000 budget to run a voter survey and then make a strategy for Staff to use the information gathered to twist sentiment in favor of higher taxes.

I attended an earlier presentation before the Finance Committee and taped it. I was shocked at the statements made – they talk pretty frank at these morning meetings because they know nobody will show up. I was particularly interested in the presentation made by Chico assistant city manager Chris Constantin. Constantin has hatched the same plot described by Sacramento City mayor Darrell Steinberg – a shells and peas scheme called “securitization.” People need to know about this scam scheme, so I wrote a letter to the Enterprise Record.

In 2018 57% of Sacramento voters passed Measure U, a half-cent sales tax increase. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg had promised voters new revenues would not go to employee pensions, instead toward economic development. However, immediately after the election, Sacramento City Council voted unanimously to place the revenues into the general fund, which pays for salaries and pensions.

Lesson learned – with a simple majority measure, the voters lose control over how the money is spent.

Promising again to keep the money from going to the pension deficit, Steinberg proposes to “securitize” $25,000,000 of annual Measure U revenue to create a capital equity fund. That fund would finance the sale of bonds, to be repaid by Measure U receipts over a 25-year period. So, half the sales tax revenue would go toward creating more debt. And the bond money could be spent at council’s indiscretion.

City of Chico staffers have proposed the same “securitization” plan to our council, who plan to put a revenue measure on the 2020 ballot. Assistant City Manager Chris Constantin has proposed using a sales tax measure to fund bonds. Constantin told the Finance Committee the fund could be used to “shoot money into the economy at the time the economy is tanking…” He would not further explain this scheme to a skeptical committee, but assured Sean Morgan “we’ll contract the type of folks who can do it.”

Subsequently, Council approved up to $60,000 from the general fund to pay a consultant to talk us into this scam. Don’t fall for it.

Tags: Chris Constantin Chico Ca, securitization

Comments 12 Comments
Categories Chico bankruptcy, Chico pension deficit, Chico revenue measure, Chico sales tax increase, Uncategorized

Let’s have some fun learning about tax measures!

3 May

Let’s have some fun people – I’ve learned so much crazy stuff about “revenue measures” the last few years, I want to share! In future posts I want to share what I’ve read about the different kinds of tax measures and how they’re passed, but today I’d like to jump ahead with these two stories from the Sacramento Bee.

I’d call this lesson, “Stuff you should learn from your neighbors”.

Learn it, know it, live it. There will be a quiz.

Sacramento mayor promised tax money for your neighborhood. Will millions go to pensions instead?

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article229871849.html

Sacramento’s business community issues strong rebuke for Measure U tax money projection

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article229876304.html

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories CARD revenue measure, Chico pension deficit, Chico revenue measure, Chico sales tax increase

Too many managers leads to gross mismanagement of Bidwell Park – but watch Staff use it as an excuse for a revenue measure

1 May

A few weeks ago we were all so outraged over the cutting of 31 healthy oak trees near Chico Creek Nature Center. The chicken feathers hit the fan. I was glad to see some outrage over a long-time pattern of neglect and mismanagement of Bidwell Park. But, here again, city staff is using this as another pitch for a revenue measure.

This week city public works director Eric Gustafson admitted he didn’t make a work plan for that job – how would the crews know what to cut? Furthermore, he didn’t properly mark the trees. In fact, the city had no standardized system for marking trees, even though an arborist has been on staff for a couple of years now. And the staffer who was supposed to be supervising the crews “had been called away…” Called away to what? Lunch? The bathroom? What other “emergency” would prompt a supervisor to leave a crew with no work plan and no standardized tree markings? Cutting trees over a foot in diameter? This is incompetence.

This incident is just another example of how badly the city manages Bidwell Park. And Chico Area Recreation District took over the Nature Center several years ago – all these managers, but no management?

Gustafson has the nerve, again, to cry about his “staff shortage“. Didn’t he read this post I made at the time?

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2019/03/31/keep-rattling-your-chains-write-letters-to-both-papers-tell-them-we-know-where-the-money-is-going/

Gustafson continues to repeat The Big Lie – staff shortage. But he admitted to the Park Commission ” there were ‘a lot of assumptions made,’ and gaps in communications became obvious.” Assumptions? Gaps in communication? That’s not caused by a staff shortage, it’s caused by a lack of attention to your job. In fact, early reports of the incident said that Gustafson was notified of the cutting at about 11am but did not come out to the job site – less than 5 miles from his office – until about 2 in the afternoon. I think that’s dereliction of duty.

The Big Truth – they’ve deferred maintenance and cut the working staff in the park because they’ve been siphoning money out of the park fund to pay their pensions. Looking at the 2018-19 budget, under “expenditures” on line 996, I found $287,396 in “indirect cost allocation”. As explained by city assistant manager Chris Constantin, that’s money taken from the park fund to pay salaries and benefits of non-park department employees.

Constantin explained it one day in a meeting – as we sat discussing a certain issue, all the employees in the room, from the council members on the board to the city manager to the finance director to the clerk, and including any staffers who came in to give a report, or just because they might be asked a question, were being paid out of the pertinent fund. So when the Finance Committee takes up the subject of putting a revenue measure on the ballots for “road maintenance,” the road fund is billed for the time of every employee in that room, their salaries, benefits and pensions are taken out of that fund. That includes a percentage for the “Pension Stabilization Trust,” out of which is paid the “Unfunded Accrued Liability” (Pension Deficit).

So don’t buy this story about “staff shortage” – tell the truth. It’s time to trim management, in fact, get rid of “classic” employees who are only required to pay 11 percent of their benefits. New hires are required to pay 50 percent. Get rid of the bloated bureaucrats who refuse to do any work, and hire some young people with better attitudes who are willing to pay their own freight.

Tags: Bidwell Park, Chico Creek Nature Center, Eric Gustafson Chico Dept. of Public Works, Oaks Massacre Bidwell Park Chico CA

Comments 2 Comments
Categories CARD revenue measure, Chico pension deficit, Chico revenue measure, Chico sales tax increase, Uncategorized

A lie will stick unless you call the liar out on it

17 Apr

Al Franken wrote a really funny book years back, before he became a politician, you might want to check it out –

It’s not balanced, or fair, but it’s sooooo true! And it’s not just “the Right,” either. They all lie. Have you heard about the latest attempt to keep voters from knowing the truth about tax measures?

https://calmatters.org/articles/commentary/bond-issue-transparency-still-under-assault/

Dan Walters:

“Two years ago, in a rare display of support for transparency in government finance, the Legislature and then-Gov. Jerry Brown required local governments and school districts to tell voters how proposed bond issues would affect their property taxes.

That would seem to be just common sense and good government, but local officials complained that Assembly Bill 195 would be too difficult to implement. Their real motive, however, was a fear that telling voters that their tax bills would increase might discourage them from voting for the bonds.“

It’s a good thing we have Dan Walters, because our local media have fallen in with city staff and council to run their tax measure campaign, both the tv news and the daily running at least a story a week about how we need a tax measure to fix all the problems brought about by years of poor management and self-service. I finally had to ask ER reporter Laura Urseny where she got the numbers regarding how many Camp Fire evacuees are still residing within the Chico City limits.

I covered that here:

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2019/04/12/orme-estimates-10-15000-refugees-living-in-chico-based-on-nonregistration-couch-living-trailers-parked-on-streets/

I knew they didn’t have any numbers, or I’d have asked, “how many people from the burned areas already drove into Chico five or more days a week to their job, already shopped in Chico regularly, already used Chico roads and services?” I already know the answer – probably more than half the people – more like two thirds – in the affected areas already came to Chico, drove our roads, used our retail sector, our post office, and other services, on a regular basis.

But a lie will stick unless you call the liar out on it. So I wrote the following letter to the ER.

Stories in this newspaper claim the city of Chico “has absorbed many displaced Camp Fire victims.” When I asked one reporter for a specific figure, she paraphrased the city manager as follows.

“He [Mark Orme] said he doesn’t have hard numbers from FEMA because of nonregistration, couch-living, trailers parked on streets etc. He said the city is still using the 10,000-15,000 estimate.”

A FEMA map shows a great many of the roughly 20,000 evacuees have spread out around Butte County, California and the US, with no figures for Chico. Staff is simply using numbers that suit their purpose. To date, Staff has used their “estimate” to excuse poor road conditions, crime problems, housing shortage and cost, and now a “$5-6,000,000” roundabout.

Staff admits they have deferred road maintenance in Chico since long before the Camp Fire. The city’s welcome mat for transients is the source of our crime problems. The short-lived boom in the Chico housing market immediately following the Camp Fire has been over for some time – there are 247 listings on Trulia. The proposal to place FEMA housing near the Eaton Road interchange has been abandoned.

Staff is pressing for a tax measure using Camp Fire evacuees as bait. Dan Walters points out “the underlying real reasons, such as to cover rapidly increasing employee pension and health care costs.” Chico’s pension deficit is over $130,000,000. The Wall Street Journal reports, “despite bull market, pension plans in miserable shape…”

Staff needs to fess up, and pay their own pensions.

Comments 14 Comments
Categories Chico bankruptcy, Chico media is a disappointment, Chico pension deficit, Chico revenue measure, Chico sales tax increase, revenue measures Chico CA, Uncategorized

Orme “estimates” 10 – 15,000 refugees living in Chico, based on “nonregistration, couch living, trailers parked on streets…”

12 Apr

I don’t know how you feel about roundabouts, but one fact we know for sure – they bring a lot of money into the city by way of grants.

From the Chico Enterprise Record, “According to senior traffic engineer Bikramjit Kahlon, the cost of the project is between $5 and $6 million. ‘It just depends when we go out to bid,’ he said Monday. The city’s match is about $1 million, with Caltrans funding the remainder amount.”

Eaton Road roundabout proposed for traffic, safety

$5-6 million for one roundabout? Most of that will go into the salaries Downtown. An old contractor I know says “boots on the ground labor” and materials make up about 2% of the cost of these public jobs. This is one way Staff turns money we paid toward maintenance of our roads into their salaries and pensions.

Here’s a thought – how’d you like to see that million the city is kicking in on the street in front of your house? How far would that million go toward the streets in your neighborhood?

And again, they are using Camp Fire refugees as bait. Read these excerpts.

“Even before the Camp Fire pushed thousands more new residents into Chico, the intersection was known for commute-time traffic jams and lines of traffic out to the freeway, along with traffic accidents.”

“thousands more new residents”? I had to ask reporter Laura Urseny if she has any hard numbers on how many evacuees have settled in Chico since the fire. She had none, but asked city manager Mark Orme if he had any. “He [Orme] said he doesn’t have hard numbers from FEMA because of nonregistration, couch-living, trailers parked on streets etc. He said the city is still using the 10,000-15,000 estimate.”

So, Orme drives by your house, sees a trailer in your driveway, and assumes it’s full of evacuees? Sees somebody sitting on your couch through a front window and assumes you have a “couch liver” in your household? On this basis he assumes and reports that we have “10,000-15,000” new residents in our town?

Excuse me, this guy gets over $200,000/year in compensation, and he expects to give up this kind of crap?

Unfortunately he’s got a willing media to help him pull the wool over our eyes. Urseny skirts the truth, but keeps promoting the lie – “The project has been proposed for a long time, but has been sped up with the city’s dealings with Camp Fire impacts. However, Kahlon said there is no FEMA-related funding in the project.” If this project was truly necessitated by the Camp Fire evacuation, or any impacts, the city would be getting FEMA funding.

They started this campaign before the fire was even out. “The project was discussed during a public meeting about Camp Fire impact on Chico last year, but has been in the works much longer.” Here Urseny mentions a proposed refugee housing project that was rejected, but still includes it as a “Camp Fire impact”. “Initially, a FEMA proposal called for Camp Fire mobile homes to be placed on a vacant parcel on Eaton Road between Highway 99 and Cohasset Road, but that residential project has been abandoned. Nevertheless, the traffic on the current two-lane road is huge, impacted by Chico’s growing population, but also by residential subdivisions developing in north Chico.”

In the same edition that Urseny ran her promo piece, there was this map:

Map: See where Camp Fire evacuees have moved across the country

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=10YY_flCa-v2h-qofl8x0L49kmuOT3AeE&ll=33.09184936709246%2C-91.56768772732823&z=4

“Relocation destinations are also listed below from most to least popular, in terms of the number of households registered with FEMA now living there. FEMA only provided information about individual counties in California, not other states.”

In other words, if you had insurance on your destroyed home, and therefore did not go to the ridiculous lengths to register for something you were not eligible to receive, you were not counted.

The article said that 16,583 of the registered (and that includes entire households who live under one roof) have remained in all of Butte County. That includes Paradise, Magalia, Butte Meadows, Yankee Hill, Concow, Cohasset, Forest Ranch, Gridley, Live Oak – did I miss any? Personally, the Camp Fire victims I know are all planning to rebuild their homes in Paradise. Some have already hired private contractors to clear their lots and are already living back at their property. Some are struggling to live in unburned homes with no safe water or power, and dead/dying trees hanging over their heads. Roads are a mess, workers everywhere, and Butte County has not even started their lot-clearance program. But the folks I know are all determined to return, they have no desire to remain “stuck in Chico.”

And here’s another fact that Orme cleverly ignores – many of the folks who evacuated to Chico already worked here and drove down to town almost every day, where they also shopped and socialized.

So, the “impacts” are largely MADE UP. Staff continues to lie to get their way. Next Tuesday they will bring a revenue measure consultant to make report regarding the $25,000 survey they are planning to get us to tax ourselves to pay their pensions. They want $65,000 more for a consultant to actually run their campaign. This is illegal, but who will call them on it?

Will you?

Tags: Camp Fire, Camp Fire impacts on Chico, Mark Orme Chico Ca

Comments 9 Comments
Categories Airport tax, Chico homeless problem, Chico pension deficit, Chico revenue measure, Chico sales tax increase, Chico transient problem,, Uncategorized

Keep rattling your chains – write letters to both papers, tell them we know where the money is going

31 Mar

Dave Howell wrote a great letter to the News and Review, taking on the pensions. Thanks for going to the trouble to write these letters Dave, I know it’s not easy to get a letter in the N&R.

The problem is pensions

Re “Taxes and police” (Letters, by Martine Stillwell, March 14):

Martine Stillwell is justifiably outraged that our city’s politicians are pushing a tax increase to fix the roads after letting them fall into disrepair thus increasing the cost to repair them.

I wonder how much more outraged she would be if she knew that tens of thousands of our tax dollars are being paid to an opinion research firm to sell us that tax increase. And that doesn’t include the cost of the city bureaucracy’s staff time.

The reason for the awful condition of our infrastructure and the reason for this tax increase are the unsustainable cost of government employee compensation, especially pensions. For many years money for infrastructure repair has been siphoned off for raises and unsustainable pensions. Does she know our bureaucrats have pensions worth millions?

Yet instead of pension reform, our politicians believe that in a county with low wages, very high living expenses and a 21 percent poverty rate, the answer is to pass a tax increase that hits the poor the hardest.

I wonder if Martine and others will be outraged enough to vote in the next election against the tax increase and the politicians who push it and encourage others to do the same.

Dave Howell, Chico

In the same issue this letter appeared, editor Melissa Daugherty bitched about the park budget being shorted these last few years – but she didn’t mention why? So I wrote a letter about it.

Melissa Daugherty is correct (3/28), Bidwell Park has suffered deferred maintenance since massive layoff of park staffers over the last six years. The park department was absorbed into Public Works, where director Eric Gustafson oversees not only the park, but the airport, city buildings, street trees, right of way zones, street cleaning, traffic safety, city vehicles, and the sewer plant.

Like Dave Howell said (3/28), the problem is “the unsustainable cost of government employee compensation, especially pensions.” I’ll add, management top-heavy. Twelve management positions overseeing the park, including Gustafson, cost over $1 million in total compensation. The park division only has five “maintenance workers”, amounting to less than $300,000 in total compensation.

While staff defers maintenance in the park and other infrastructure all over town, they continue to pay almost $20 million a year toward their pensions, about $8 million of that toward the pension deficit. At the April 2 council meeting, staff recommends renewal of the CalPERS agreement, requiring employees to pay only 11% of the cost of their pensions, the taxpayers expected to pick up the deficit.

As long as council and staff continue to place the pensions ahead of the public, infrastructure will continue to be short changed, including Bidwell Park.

Juanita Sumner, Chico

I got my information from publicpay.gov (GCC, secretary of state)

https://publicpay.ca.gov/Reports/Cities/City.aspx?entityid=79&year=2017

and the city website – management contracts are available on the Human Resources page.

http://www.chico.ca.us/human_resources_and_risk_management/labor_agreements_home.asp

At the GCC website, you’ll see, the park budget also pays for several police/traffic officers, interns, and two “administrative assistants”. The city has to bring in Salt Creek inmates because they don’t have enough workers. And management is without a clue.

Eric Gustafson spends most of his time in meetings, same for “Resources Manager” Linda Herman. I’d bet my last $5 they don’t even own an appropriate pair of shoes to walk in the park. Both are clinically obese, and neither has any kind of credentials suggesting they are qualified to run a park.

The city continues to use the park and other sagging infrastructure to press for a revenue measure – I think we need to press for some firings Downtown. Starting at the top, with Mark Orme, followed by Chris Constantin, Scott Dowell, and every department head. It’s time for a tick dip.

Tags: Bidwell Park, Bidwell Park Nature Center, Bidwell Park oaks massacre, Chico News and Review

Comments 10 Comments
Categories Chico bankruptcy, Chico pension deficit, Chico revenue measure, Chico sales tax increase, public employee contracts, revenue measures Chico CA, Uncategorized

Speak now or forever hold your hands over your behind

13 Mar

I was thrilled to read letters from Dave Howell of Chico and Steve and Lorraine Christensen of Oroville. I speak to people all the time who feel Californians pay too many taxes, but people seldom get around to writing letters about it. I think it’s important to let your “civic” leaders know how you feel, let them know you’ve had enough, let them know you’re ready to do something about it.

Now that the city of Chico has made it clear they will pursue a tax measure, I’m not mincing words – Mark Orme needs to go. Old Yiddish proverb – when the fish stinks, it’s the head of the fish that stinks!

Orme claims he’s done a lot to lead out city out of deficit, but he’s overseen the siphoning of money from various departments into the pension deficit. Rather than fess up and pay more of his own salary toward his pension, he continues to take pay increases while offering up a mere 11% of his base salary toward his benefits, FURTHERMORE adding a tax deferred IRC 457 to his package. This guy is enriching himself out of the public cookie jar, time to slap his hands.

Write those letters!

letters@chicoer.com
chicoletters@newsreview.com
debbie.presson@chicoca.gov

At the February 27 Finance Committee meeting, city manager Mark Orme said he has resisted revenue measures in the past, but that Chico’s current situation calls for a new tax to mitigate the impacts of the Camp Fire evacuation.

City staff has been calling for a tax increase since well before the Camp Fire. They wanted to tax our cell phones. Then they said garbage trucks were wrecking our streets and added a franchise fee to our rates. Long deferred street and park maintenance. Transients straining public safety agencies. Now it’s the evacuees.

But on February 27 Orme finally acknowledged the “elephant in the room” – pensions. The city spends almost $20,000,000 annually on pensions. About $8,000,000 of that goes to the pension deficit.

Orme insisted staff has learned to “live within our means.” Really? The city manager’s base salary has gone from $192,000 to $207,500 since his hire, but his total pay is over $225,000, including perks such as a $400/month car allowance. Tack on another $82,000 in pension and health benefits, including $18,000 for an IRC 457 added to his contract just last year.

Orme only pays 11% of his base salary for a pension of 70 percent of his highest year’s salary at age 60. This is how the deficit was created, the employees expect a lot but only want to contribute a fraction of the cost.

The question isn’t whether we need a new tax, but why the taxpayers should bear the burden of a pension deficit created by public employees.

Juanita Sumner

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Chico bankruptcy, Chico garbage franchise, Chico pension deficit, Chico revenue measure, Chico sales tax increase, local sales tax increases, Pension Time Bomb, revenue measures Chico CA, Uncategorized

“Why is there always enough money for large pensions and raises (and propaganda) for bureaucrats yet never enough money to maintain the streets?”

4 Mar

I want to thank Dave for writing this kick-ass letter to the Enterprise Record last week. I know it ran either the day before or the day of the Finance Committee meeting last week and I know Mark Orme read it. Now I also know I’m not the only person who has a problem with paying for a campaign to raise my taxes to pay for the pension deficit created by years of entitlement.

Orme mentioned the pensions, but would not admit they are the real drive behind a revenue measure. He said they want the money to either fix streets or hire more cops. But we’ve all seen the method by which they transfer money from every department into the “Pension Stabilization Trust” and the “UAL” fund to pay down a deficit that the employees created themselves by not paying enough into their own pensions.

Write your own letter folks – don’t be an ostrich, stick your head up and be heard.

Why is there always enough money for large pensions and raises for bureaucrats yet never enough money to maintain the streets?

And now our city council members have decided there is plenty of money in city coffers to propagandize the public, so they are giving tens of thousand of our tax dollars (and most likely more later) to a PR firm to sell us another bond measure (just another type of tax increase) or a sales tax increase. And this does not include the cost of the city bureaucracy’s staff time. Is this how you want your hard-earned tax dollars spent?

And whatever tax increase they sell you will be just a down payment as the city’s unfunded pension liability will only get worse. Just wait for the next recession and stock market plunge. Then the politicians will spend more of your tax dollars to sell you yet another tax increase.

I urge everyone to read the long time political watchdog and journalist Dan Walters’ editorials: “Despite law, politicians use taxpayer funds for campaigns,” “Local tax hikes cleverly packaged,” “Cities should fess up about taxes, pensions,” and “Property tax surge reveals the truth: Local tax hikes are all about pensions” athttps://calmatters.org/articles/author/dan-walters/. (Some of these editorials ran in the Chico ER.)

As Walters notes, “With very rare exceptions, however, officials who place the tax increases on the ballot will not publicly say the extra revenue is needed to offset rising pension costs. Rather, on the advice of high-priced consultants, they say the money is needed for popular police and fire services and parks.”And he says, “The League of California Cities has raised the alarm about ‘unsustainable levels’ of pension costs. Isn’t it time for the cities themselves to be truthful when they ask voters for new taxes?”

Our community is in a state that has some of the highest taxes and living expenses in the nation. And if the local politicians have their way your taxes and expenses are going up. Also, wages in Butte County are in the bottom 10 percent of the larger counties in the nation. California has the highest poverty rate in the nation at 19% and Butte County is even worse at 21%. It is unfair to increase this community’s tax burden while government employee pensions go unreformed.

It is long past time for politicians to spend within our means and represent us instead of special interests at our expense.

Tags: Mark Orme is the elephant in the Chico livingroom

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Categories Chico pension deficit, Chico revenue measure, Chico sales tax increase, local tax increases, Pension Time Bomb

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Chico Taxpayers Association