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Oroville transfers $366,000 in Camp Fire money to Pension Stabilization Fund

5 Mar

PUBLISHED OROVILLE MERCURY NEWS:  | UPDATED: 

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

“Let the games begin, or should I say, let the shell games continue.  On Feb. 19,  Oroville Financial Director Ruth Wright,  gave an update on Oroville’s city  budget. She caught my attention when I heard her say $366,000 in FEMA funds were applied to the “Pension Stabilization Fund.”

Oroville’s previous council decided to repurpose all “one-time money”, to this fund.  This year over $1 million was swept  away from city improvements and funneled into the  CALpers stabilization accounts.

For those that voted themselves a one percent tax increase in hopes of fewer crimes, street repairs, and clean parks, I fear you will be disappointed. It’s all about  the unsustainable CALpers fund. Oroville now has a one percent added-on sales tax plus a five percent Utility Users Tax. Look at the five utility bills you receive each month. Check out the UUT you are paying.

The city has been asked to repeal the five percent Utility Users Tax now that the one percent sales tax has passed.  City staff has recommended “no,” citing the city’s precarious financial situation. The council decided to delay that decision for a year.

I would predict there will be no repeal. The shell games will continue. The city will still be crying poor. New fees and tax proposals will be pursued. The proceeds will be used for CALpers contributions in a futile attempt to delay its inevitable collapse.

— Lorraine Christensen, Oroville”

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“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.

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Who’s responsible for these elephant turds?

2 Mar

At last week’s Finance Committee meeting (Feb. 27) Mayor Randall Stone (Chair) and council members Sean Morgan and Ann Schwab heard a consultant’s pitch for a revenue measure campaign, starting with the usual “survey”. City mangler Mark Orme made some interesting comments before introducing the consultant.

Orme stated that since he came to the city in 2013 he has “resisted” revenue measures. “I think there needs to be a high level of trust within the community that those funds are going to be spent prudently.” 

I always wonder about public sentiment. Do most Chico voters trust the city council and staff to use their money wisely? And here’s the scary question – what would they know about it?

Orme feels that he and staff have “created a higher level of trust.” opining, “We have learned to live within our means.”

Orme reminisced about his arrival in Chico in 2013, reminding us that the city “has been through hard times.”  He talked about “lost” staffers as though they wandered away in a storm or left for better digs elsewhere. No, hit man Brian Nakamura was hired, long time staffers were fired, or in some cases, simply encouraged to take a position in another city. “Hit Man” brought in former co-workers as new management and skipped off to his next assignment. Over the next year or so staff was pared down until there were no more workers, just management. And management salaries have continued to get higher – now in excess of $200,000/year – while they only pay 11 percent of their pension cost.

So I’d really like to ask Orme just whose means he’s been living within.

He certainly did mention the pensions – “one of the big elephants that cruises through any government living room…” He acknowledges the pension deficit. But here’s where the fiction continues – “The city  didn’t create it…”

I have to take exception with that last claim.  Looking at Orme’s contract here, it’s not hard to see what really happened.

Click to access OrmeEmploymentAgreement10-2017.pdf

“WHEREAS, the Council desires to have Orme participate in CalPERS cost sharing, and pay three percent (3%) of the Employer’s cost, in addition to Orme’s contribution for CalPERS;”

On “Exhibit A” you find the employee share, Orme’s contribution, is 8%. Plus 3% of the “employer share” equals 11%. For 70% of his $207,500 salary at age 60. The city payment has been increasing every year, I  believe they now pay 39% but it might be more. CalPERS is constantly demanding more. The other 50 or so percent rides on the stock market. This hasn’t worked out so far – CalPERS promises 7% return but has been lucky to see 1%. This has caused the PENSION DEFICIT, aka PENSION LIABILITY.

Not only that, but Orme, as well as other management staffers, have recently added a IRC 457 plan to their contracts. In addition to their salaries and CalPERS contributions paid, they get tax exempt “deferred” compensation.

“Plans of deferred compensation described in IRC section 457 are available for certain state and local governments and non-governmental entities tax exempt under IRC Section 501. They can be either eligible plans under IRC 457(b) or ineligible plans under IRC 457(f). Plans eligible under 457(b) allow employees of sponsoring organizations to defer income taxation on retirement savings into future years.“

“Effective from the first pay period in January 2017 considered in calculating the maximum IRC 457 plan limit and annually, City agrees to contribute nine thousand dollars ($9,000) , to Employee’s IRC 457 plan. Additionally, effective October 5, 2017 the City agrees to contribute four and fifty-two hundredths percent (4.52%) of base salary to Employee’s IRC 45 plan.”

See, the city most certainly did create the deficit, because they’ve continued to agree not only to CalPERS stipulations but to bigger and bigger salaries (and therefore PENSIONS) and more generous contracts all along. Since 2013, Orme’s salary has gone up almost $20,000. Laying off people who made $35,000 – 65,000 a year while raising management salaries by 10’s of thousands is like taking 5 steps backward and no steps forward. As Orme acknowledged last Wednesday, we now get no services.

“Now we’re a city that’s living within their means that isn’t meeting the needs of the community…”

We need to ask ourselves, what the hell is the use of a city that doesn’t meet the needs of it’s community?

Orme casually mentions the elephant in the room – he is the elephant in the room. Somebody better get him a shovel, he has a huge pile of crap to clean up.

 

 

 

 

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Dan Walter: School officials and school unions are teaching students that it’s all right to run up credit card bills, blame others for overspending and then cross their fingers that someone will bail them out

11 Feb

After I wrote my analysis of CARD’s use of their expensive Cal Park Lakeside Pavilion facility, I read this piece by Dan Walter:

https://calmatters.org/articles/commentary/school-districts-set-poor-example-for-students/

Walters is talking about various California school districts, but what he says also applies to our local recreation district – ” it’s all right to run up credit card bills, blame others for overspending and then cross their fingers that someone will bail them out.”

That’s becoming standard public agency policy these days, and it’s not just the pensions, but poor spending decisions by policy makers. I mean, blatant decisions, like spend $385,000 on a remodel for council chambers, or paying a million borrowed dollars on a crapped out old building and then several hundred thousand fixing it. 

But most poor spending decisions seem to involve public salaries and benefits. Walter reports ” In 2017, when Sacramento Unified’s teachers were threatening to strike, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg mediated a new contract that gave teachers an 11 percent raise. Later, it emerged that the salary increases would come from a reserve set aside for pension fund payments.”

In Chico, both the city and CARD have set up “pension trust” funds, allocating money from other city funds, to pay down their pension deficit. this is in addition to what taxpayers already pay toward pensions on a monthly basis. We pay their payments monthly, and then we’re on the hook for an annual payment that increases every year – this year, $7,598,561.  Former CARD finance director Scott Dowell now runs the city finances, so he set up both funds. He says these funds save money by avoiding penalties from CalPERS. What it amounts to is embezzling money from one fund to another so you can spend it any way you want. 

In Sacramento, contrary to the  rules for one of these “trusts”, they spent the money to give their teachers an 11 percent raise. Of course, you know what those raises are going to do to those teachers’ pensions, right?

As soon as Chico Unified passed Measure K in 2016, district finance mangler Kevin Bultema told the board they were still looking at deficits caused by raises given teachers. He told me in an e-mail that if they didn’t get more money they’d cut programs. 

Walter’s point in this piece is that the schools are setting a poor example for the kids. I’d say,  government in general is setting a poor example for everybody. 

 

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City staff using Camp Fire to justify sewer rate increase

1 Feb

According to a rambling letter from Stephanie Taber, somebody is running a survey to determine whether “the voters” want to support a sales tax increase for street maintenance. I’ve been waiting for such a survey, but of course I know they won’t sent it or call it to me. These consultants very carefully vet their audience and contact those who are most likely to support these increases. It’s not an attempt to see what people want, but to plant ideas in their heads, and talk them into coughing up more money.

Right now the city is using a very embedded local media to run their initial campaign. Public works director Eric Gustafson was on the news recently, showing us floating piles of poop down at the sewer plant, trying to tell us the Camp Fire evacuees are putting a strain on our sewer system.

Here’s my first question – why didn’t any of this come up during past discussions of new subdivisions? Why not during the approval of Air BNB? 

I’ve heard them discuss the sewer plant – a year and a half ago, at a discussion of  cost allocation,  the sewer plant manager complained that salaries and benefits are eating up all the money at the sewer plant and they would need a rate increase or the sewer fund would go into deficit. Looking at the latest version of the city of Chico budget shows the sewer plant fund is running in deficit. 

Click to access 2018-19CityAnnualFINALBudget.pdf

The sewer budget is divided into different categories. I used the ‘F’ search to scan down for each mention of sewer fund activity. As of July 2018 most of the totals are shown in parenthesis, which means “deficit”. Those funds not shown in deficit only have about  $100,000 or less. But look at the revenues they take in – where does all that money  go? Look at the top of the expenditures page 61/312 – “debt principal” and “debt interest”. 

That’s allll about the pensions, Honey!

Here’s how the city hides payments toward the pension deficit

Again, on page 62 – another couple of million goes to “debt principal” and “debt interest”. 

Millions of dollars for their pension funds, but no money to run the plant? 

Gustafson contradicts himself in the news story too.

“Before the fire, Chico’s wastewater treatment facility processed about 6 million gallons of waste on average per day. Since then that amount has gone up to 7 million. Biosolid production has gone up 70%, while overall waste and sewage flows are up 17%.

Gustafson tells Action News Now, the facility is able to handle a capacity of 12 million gallons of waste per day. But, the city is currently equipped to take on an amount over a decade of growth, rather than overnight.”

He says capacity is 12 million gallons, but complains that waste production has gone up to 7 million. That leaves room for quite a bit more poo poo. What is this man trying to pull here?

“‘If those increased flows continue, there will be increased costs, and we will have to go to council for increased funds,’ Gustafson says.

“Chico Public Works is now working on a rate analysis to determine if a rate increase should happen to help with waste processing costs and fixing the 90-year-old underground plumbing system that supports the city.”

Now they’re mentioning the 90-year-old underground plumbing system that supports the city?  This never comes up during discussions of approving ginormous new subdivisions. 

Here’s the real reason:

“Chicoans now pay the lowest sewer rates out of all cities in the area: $22.98 per month. Compare this to Orland’s $26.10, Sacramento’s $32 and Napa’s $42.83.

Chicoans still pay the same rate, but new development has added many, many new customers since the rate was increased. And, again, the sewer plant is only operating at a little more than half capacity.

See how these people try to spin a story to make us think we need to raise our own taxes? 

This is what Steven Greenhut is talking about in “PLUNDER!” These employees are in position to tell us whatever they want. They have a local media that is more than willing to run their propaganda campaign. It’s up to the rest of us to pay attention and say something.

From Ch 12 Action News Now

CHICO SEWAGE NUMBERS SPIKE POST-CAMP FIRE

The amount of human waste production in Chico has shot up by amounts normally seen over a 10 year period.

Posted: Jan. 29, 2019 11:46 AM
Updated: Jan. 30, 2019 10:06 AM
Posted By: Stephanie Lin Action News Now

CHICO, Calif. – The City of Chico has seen a population explosion, and it’s not just the roads that are impacted. Post-Camp Fire sewage production numbers are at an all-time high.

Action News Now reporter Stephanie Lin sat down with Public Works’ Eric Gustafson for a closer look at the cause behind all the waste. He reports seeing an average of a million gallons extra per day being pushed through the city’s treatment facilities.

“Multiple family members or friends are staying in one household,” Gustafson explains, “so that’s double the flow from one household but the [charged sewage] rate is still the same.”

The same idea applies to those living in RVs connecting to sewer hook-ups on one shared property. Then there’s all the septage from Cal OES, FEMA, and PG&E base camps. Add all these sources together, and you’ve got one big costly problem.

“If those increased flows continue, there will be increased costs, and we will have to go to council for increased funds,” Gustafson says.

Chico Public Works is now working on a rate analysis to determine if a rate increase should happen to help with waste processing costs and fixing the 90-year-old underground plumbing system that supports the city.

Chicoans now pay the lowest sewer rates out of all cities in the area: $22.98 per month. Compare this to Orland’s $26.10, Sacramento’s $32 and Napa’s $42.83.

Before the fire, Chico’s wastewater treatment facility processed about 6 million gallons of waste on average per day. Since then that amount has gone up to 7 million. Biosolid production has gone up 70%, while overall waste and sewage flows are up 17%.

THIS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE –  Gustafson tells Action News Now, the facility is able to handle a capacity of 12 million gallons of waste per day. But, the city is currently equipped to take on an amount over a decade of growth, rather than overnight. 

Public Works plans to present their rate analysis to city council late spring. Once that is done, the public will also be able to chime in.
No rate changes will happen until there is at least a 51% approval. Conversations also continue with state legislators to hopefully find a fast fix to the sewage problem.

In the meantime, the work continues to maintain the expected quality of life for Chicoans and their new neighbors.

“We want Paradise folks to know they are welcome in Chico, and hope they can find a bit of normalcy,” Gustafson emphasizes.

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PLUNDER! Greenhut describes “the kind of society we’re creating… government elite… special  pay… benefits… privileges… and exemptions – the rest of us pay for these excesses!”

26 Jan

In his book “PLUNDER!” Steven Greenhut makes it immediately clear he has no love for the public sector or government workers, opining, “Many, if not most of them, perform jobs that should either be eliminated or handled by the private sector…”

He goes on to describe the “Public Employee Smorgasbord” by which “public servants” receive special privileges and enjoy salaries and benefits “50% more than private sector employees doing similar jobs.” 

Yeah, I’ve seen this in the contracts and rules. I just read a cop contract from last year that allowed them to go to the  gym during their shift, already having been paid to “don and doff” – shower and dress at the beginning and/or end of each shift. They also get “mandatory overtime” – that’s not the city demanding that they work longer hours but the cops demanding to get paid a minimum amount of overtime each year. 

Our city employees, including city council members, are “indemnified” – they  can’t be sued for bad decisions, like those made in the early 2000’s that brought our city down the road to Bankruptcy. Scott Gruendl and Mary Flynn left in a cloud of disgrace over alcohol and drug problems – after having sat for years in whatever kind of condition making decisions that tanked our local economy. But they’re Teflon-coated, we can’t sue them. 

This book was written in 2009, when I was just becoming aware of the pensions and the burgeoning deficit. Greenhut reminds me of the days when they were still trying to hide the deficit. I remember going to a morning meeting back in the early 2000’s, at which Mayor Gruendl, probably reeling from a hangover or higher than a kite on pills, tried to pussy-foot around the problem. He wanted a revenue measure but was afraid to tell the public why. He had one of those oversize drawing pads on an eisle, with Sharpees of various colors, he tried to sketch out the situation. At one point he put down the red pen saying, “ooops! We don’t want to scare anybody!”

Well, since then, we found out, we were sitting at the edge of a precipice, in a junked out car, teetering on the brink of disaster, and here was Gruendl, not wanting to scare anybody!

Brian Nakamura, bless his black little heart, came in as City Manager in 2012. He had been hired to tell the public what was going on, and he made it very clear, announcing a pension deficit of about $189 million. He also mentioned a “benefits deficit,” but that has never been seriously discussed. 

Nakamura explained pension deficit, or liability, and chastised us for not passing Measure J – a cell phone tax that he said would have produced about $900,000 a year. That sounded pretty ridiculous, in the face of a $189 million problem. 

Our leaders hired this man, gave him an unprecedented salary, and signed a contract that promised him a full year’s salary if terminated. When he left within a year to take a job in Rancho Cordova, they all stood there with their mouths hanging open.

Why are our elected officials so dumb? Why do they agree to this stuff? Greenhut nails it – “Elected officials are generous … they buy labor peace and political support… letting future taxpayers deal with the growing debt…”

Yeah, where’s Scott Gruendl today? He’s sitting in a lucrative job with San Mateo County, Behavioral Health Director. The guy who left his job with Glenn County Behavioral Health just ahead of a tar and feathers party at which he was going to be fired. Instead of holding Gruendl liable for his behavior and incompetence, the Glenn County Board of Stupes  let him resign, meaning he gets full retirement.

With this kind of leadership it is not surprising to find ourselves in the situation we’re in. Our elected officials have been playing fast and loose with the cookie jar, especially in regards to “public safety workers.” Greenhut explains the “3% at 50” rule  – cops and fire get 90% of their highest year’s salary after 30 years of service. Get aload of this – if they claim disability they not only get year’s off with pay, but they protect half their retirement from taxes!

Anything is a job-related disability if you’re a cop or firefighter. Diabetes, heart condition, high blood pressure. Many claim bad back or bad knees. One Chico police officer came out of retirement to work a big student riot back in the late 80’s. When he died just a few years ago, I read in his obit that he blew out his knee that night, and ended up getting disability payments in addition to retirement! Gotta love that kind of initiative!

All this leads to the section entitled “Vallejo”. Remember Vallejo? And then Stockton went, and other cities in California started flirting with bankruptcy. Greenhut talks about “the kind of society we’re creating… government elite… special  pay… benefits… privileges… and exemptions – the rest of us pay for these excesses!”

I left off at “The $100,000 Pension Club” – I had to chuckle. Since Greenhut wrote this book, it’s become the “$200,000 Pension Club.” While “safety workers” enjoy 90% at age 50, the others get 70% at age 55. As salaries have climbed higher and higher for management, so have pensions. 

Our city manager, Mark Orme, made $212,000 a year in salary – the last time I looked! It’s probably more now. I’ll guess he’s been in the CalPERS system at least 15 or 20 years – in 10 or so more years, with one raise after another, he’ll be retiring at over $200,000 a year, with cost of living increases and all kinds of health benefits. 

As management, Orme didn’t pay anything toward his own pension/benefits until a few years ago, when public outrage pushed it to 4 percent. He may pay 9% now. And we pay the rest. As I explained in a recent blog – we pay 30 percent or more each month, and then we make a $7.5 million (and growing) annual payment on top of that. CalPERS wants more – as bankruptcy circles our town like a pack of wolves moving in on a church picnic.

I left off as Greenhut was  describing what I began to notice about Chico 10 or more years ago – “a two tier society where government elite live far better than the public.”

I’ll add, they raise the price of everything from housing to groceries to daycare. Those of us who  can’t afford the elite prices are left to live in crime-ridden neighborhoods with shredded streets while the newer subdivisions in which these people live are “clean, safe and attractive!” Imagine what it’s like to live in Chapmantown with kids, or as an old person.

Yesterday my husband and I were driving up Mulberry while running errands. I noticed the cars ahead of us pulling into oncoming traffic to avoid something – as we came along I was shocked to see a very old lady on one of those little electric wheelchairs, barely visible over the hood of our truck, making her way between parked and moving cars. I wondered, why is she in the street? And then I noticed – the curbs are all high on Mulberry Street, she couldn’t get onto the sidewalk. 

 

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Book In Common: PLUNDER! How Public Employees are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation, by Steven Greenhut.

25 Jan

I’d been waiting over a week for a book I’d ordered online that should have been delivered within a couple of days. I kept checking my PO box, by this past Monday, I worried it had got lost. Yesterday it finally arrived – well, I got it yesterday. I’m guessing it arrived at Chico post office about a week ago.

It was too big for my PO box, I know the routine – they put a key in your box that goes with one of the big boxes in front of the annex. I retrieved the package from the big box and immediately noticed – a postal worker had scrawled a box number in big black letters across the front of the package, unfortunately, it wasn’t my box number. My correct box number was listed in the address box on the front of the package, neat and tidy.  Postal worker transposed the numbers, in big black writing, so the key went to somebody else’s box.

Here’s where human decency comes in. Somebody else got my package, saw it wasn’t for them, and put it back in the stream. They may even be the same person who wrote the correct number above the transposed number. 

When this happened at my house, my neighbors got my packages. Both packages were clearly marked with the correct address, but mail man delivered them to my neighbors. Neither neighbor bothered to return the package to my clearly marked box on the street, both opened the packages, even though they were addressed to someone else. We got the packages back because my husband went door-to-door. 

Neither neighbor apologized for opening our packages, we let it go and stopped having stuff shipped to our home. 

Of course Christmas is a horrible time to get or send packages, we all know that. But I order a lot of household goods from an online seller in Vermont, and I had to have some stuff delivered in the first weeks of December. Right in the middle of the flood of evacuees driven out by the Camp Fire. But my package had a tracking number, I watched it move slowly across the US, and then I saw it had been delivered to Chico Post Office on Vallombrosa. But it wasn’t in my PO box, I kept waiting. Finally I went in very early one morning to ask for it. The man who called me up to the counter wouldn’t take the tracking number I’d written down, or look at the message on my phone that said the package had been delivered. He turned and disappeared into the back – which was a mess of packages laying all over the floor – and when he came back 15 minutes later he said there was no package. 

I looked him in the eye and shoved the tracking number at him and said real nice but firm, “please check the tracking number.”

He was huffy but he took the slip of paper. This time he was gone for 10 minutes, but by Gumm, he brought me my package. I wanted to give him a piece of my mind but the line behind me was starting to go out the door, so I said Thank You! with a big shit-eating grin and got the hell out. 

My family has received Christmas packages that have been ripped open, stolen from, and taped back together, so I  guess I was lucky to get my package intact.

Now the book, mis-marked by a post office employee. I’m getting sick and tired of the level of service we get from public workers. We bought a house in Paradise in exchange for an old rental we sold in Chico. My son was living in it at the time of the fire, luckily he had gone to work before the fire had hit town, and was safe. I’m thankful for that, but dealing with the county in the aftermath hasn’t been the least of our worries.

We were quick to send in our ROE – Right of Entry – so the county could get going with the clean-up. I understand the clean-up will take a long time, but when we didn’t hear anything about our ROE, I e-mailed them asking if it had been received. A fellow named Matt called my husband a few days later in response to the e-mail, saying we needed to submit a new insurance declaration from our policy, the old one we sent had expired when our policy turned over recently. They knew that for over a month, but didn’t contact us until we inquired about it. Is that going on all over Paradise?

And then yesterday we received a packet, sent in a custom “Butte Recovers” envelope, with  custom stationery inside, a letter telling us how important it was to complete the ROE form. They had included the entire form, over half a dozen pages. The letter was not addressed to us, it was a form letter, so I’m guessing they sent one to each and every address that had burned in the fire. 

How much did that cost? At 50 cents a letter? I’m guessing at least a few thousand bucks. Not to mention the custom printed stationery. How about $taff time, folding all those papers and shoving them in those envelopes, then running them through the stamp machine?

Here’s the irony I’ll leave you with – the book I ordered – PLUNDER! How Public Employees are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation, by Steven Greenhut.

Think the post office workers knew what was in my package? 

I’ll describe Greenhut as a government watchdog, journalist, and public advocate. His articles have appeared in papers like the Orange County Register, LA Times, San Diego Union Tribune. This book was written in 2009 – before I started blogging about what’s going on in Chico, before I ever even heard of the pensions. So, it’s history for me, finding out exactly how public employees garnered their power and position. 

I’m calling this our BOOK IN COMMON, if you’d like to get a  copy, I bought mine used for 99 cents, cost $3.99 to ship. It’s in great condition, and so far I’ve enjoyed reading the forwards by Congressman Tom McClintock and Mark Bucher, who co-authored a late-nineties attempt at requiring unions to “at least ask members before using their money for politics…”

So come on along, learn some recent history, maybe find out what needs to be done to turn back the tide of entitlement that is drowning our state.

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Here’s how the city hides payments toward the pension deficit

18 Jan

I got the agenda for next Wednesday’s City of Chico Finance Committee meeting – if you want to know how your money is being spent, these are worth a read:

Click to access 1.23.19FinanceCommitteeAgendaPacket.pdf

The agenda includes the Finance Department’s monthly report – make yourself read through the gobblety-gook of numbers and acronyms, it gets easier to pick things out. Use Google search for any term (including acronyms) that you don’t understand. 

I like to scan down and look for certain things – I like to see where revenues come from, I like to see where they’re spent. They move this money like peas under nut shells – certain funds are restricted to certain uses, but somehow they manager to “allocate” money from one fund to another, and then they can spend it the way they please.

You need to remember this when the city starts talking about their revenue measure. Right now the talking heads – including members of the public that have too much influence over council – are arguing between a sales tax increase measure and a bond. Whichever way they  go, they will need to decide between a “special” tax and a “general” tax. Currently, a “special” tax requires 2/3’s voter approval, while a “general” tax only requires a simple 51 percent. 

But it doesn’t really matter in the end, because once they get the money, they can “allocate” it right into their own pockets. 

Look at the report and watch for the word “pension”. Right away I find “CalPERS UAL payment” – that’s for the unfunded pension liability – the difference between what public employees have paid for their retirement and what they expect to get. Last May city Finance Director Scott Dowell informed the Finance Committee that the city’s UAL is over $129 million. 

The UAL payment is made once a year. This payment is separate from the regular pension payments made monthly – those are mushed in with salaries and benefits, you’d have to ask Dowell exactly what the city pays per month. 

The 2018 pay out for the UAL is $7,598,561. That’s seven million, five hundred and ninety-eight thousand, five hundred and sixty-one dollars. Say it out loud a few times, you pay for it.

Because this money doesn’t come from the employees. They pay anywhere from two percent to nine percent of their monthly pension costs. The taxpayers float another 25 – 30 percent. The rest makes up the floating liability. Here’s how the city of Chico transfers this liability onto the backs of the taxpayers.

When I asked Scott Dowell where the money for these payments comes from I got the following answer:

Fund 903 has two inflows:

1.       Each City fund that has payroll is charged a percentage of payroll for the applicable share of the estimated annual unfunded liability payment.  That amount is transferred to Fund 903 from each applicable fund.  These transfers are used to pay the annual unfunded liability payment to CalPERS out of Fund 903.

2.       The second inflow is a direct transfer from the General Fund to the Fund 903 approved by the City Council.  There was an initial transfer from the General Fund to Fund 903 of $541,455 for the year ending June 30, 2017.

Let’s look at that.

1.        this is how they hide the payment – “transfers” – they take payroll money. Look at the budget, you see “salaries and benefits” in each department’s expenditures, nothing about paying down the UAL.

2.        and there it is – “a direct transfer from the General Fund  to the Fund 903 approved by the City Council.”

The General Fund is a cookie jar with no restrictions. I’ve sat at meetings and watched money being transferred from other, restricted funds, into the GF, so they can spend the money the way they want. This is “allocation.” 

So when they tell you a  tax measure will be devoted to “street maintenance” or “public safety,” here’s what that means. 

  • CalPERS unfunded pension liability payment for 2018 – $7,598,561.00
  • Roughly half goes to “Safety” (cops and fire) – $3,660,240.00
  • An increase over last year ($6,547,673) of $1,055,888.00

 

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Don’t be fooled by city’s campaign to raise taxes

2 Oct

When I got home from that Finance Committee meeting last week I took a look at the city’s most recent budget, approved unanimously last June by a city council that had already drank the $staff koolaid. Then I wrote a letter about what I learned to the Enterprise Record.

At the September Finance Committee meeting assistant city manager Chris Constantin reported that Chico’s older neighborhood streets have been neglected in favor of  streets in newer subdivisions. “Money that comes available is steered toward roads that are in better shape, rather than replacing ones that have effectively failed.”

Staff reported $6 million in RDA funding was used to put new streets in the subdivision on Hwy 32 east.  So, the city is borrowing money at a rate of $3 for every $1 spent to build new roads for developers, while we in older neighborhoods will drive over potholes that void the warranty on our tires.

Council and staff want a revenue measure for “street maintenance”, but whose streets are we talking about?

The city already taxes our utility services, for “use of infrastructure”. $6,674,000 in Utility Users Tax added to our PG&E, landline and water bills. $845,000 in franchise fees added to our cable tv bills, $675,000 to PG&E, and another $800,000 to garbage. Another $7,490,000 added to our vehicle license fees. $7,597,000 in property taxes.  Over $2,000,000 a year in gas tax. Shouldn’t  these revenues be directly applied to the streets?

Where does the money go? Well, for example, roughly $2,000,000 of approximately $2,700,000 in annual state gas tax receipts is transferred into the salary and benefits pit known as the General Fund. Staff has also created a special fund to pay down their $180,000,000 pension deficit, council approving a $1,000,000 fund transfer earlier this year. That amount increases annually.

No to revenue increases, yes to more accountability Downtown.

 

 

 

The rise of Bum Town

1 Sep

My husband and I were floored when we ran into an old friend the other day and he said he and his wife are thinking about moving out of Chico. Our kids grew up together.

“Chico’s just not the same town anymore,” he lamented. What an understatement.

I know this man came here as a college student, but he’s lived here most of his life now, married, raised kids, paid property taxes. As a person who’s lived in this area since early childhood, I’ll say it’s a nightmare. As I wander around town – what was it Woody Guthrie said? I never see a friend I know as I go rambling round.

Many of the older people I knew have  retired elsewhere. Many of the people I knew of my own age have moved out of Chico, staying just close enough to commute to jobs, mostly moving into the outer lying communities  like Paradise, Forest Ranch or Concow. None of their kids seem to be staying in Chico. For one thing, there are no good jobs for young people in Chico. My son and his girlfriend are both employed in Chico, but their bosses hold them to less than 30 hours so they don’t have to pay Obamacare. On that income  they can’t afford to live in Chico unless they want to live in the ghetto and get their cars  broken into every night.

That’s what I’m hearing from a lot of my old friends, Chico is expensive but it’s a s*** hole. Why pay a lot of money to live in a s*** hole? That’s what our friend was saying, the areas surrounding the old subdivision he lives in are like Zombie Town. When I was a kid, that whole part of town was brand spanking new. Now the streets are in lousy condition, as are most of the residential streets in town, and the retail sector’s are trashy and rundown. It’s just a perfect setting for a bunch of bums to move in, take up residence in bus stop shelters and bushes lining the streets. Or in any of a number of crapped out old motels that are not held up to code.

I’ve known homeless people, I’ve been homeless. When I was working and going to college I was always on the verge of homelessness. But I stuck with my family and friends. I lived on my sister’s couch, I lived in my mom’s spare bedroom, and when I was in between Apartments I stayed on Friends couches or in spare bedrooms. I never had to worry about a place to stay, because I wasn’t a dysfunctional drunken drug addict. I didn’t get what I wanted by demanding it and waving around a dirty knife or smashing a bottle on the floor in a grocery store. My friends didn’t have to worry that I would be robbing them while they were asleep.

On the other hand, I did have friends and even family members who robbed me while I was asleep. Sometimes I didn’t have the best judgement in friends and when somebody was in trouble maybe I didn’t realize it was because of their own doing. I did get taken advantage of when I was nice to people sometimes. I had a cousin who wasn’t trusted by any member of the family because she always had a hard luck story but as soon as you were out of the house she was routing through everything you owned and making long distance phone calls.

I learned that people like that never had any remorse for their bad behavior, if you let them they would take advantage again and again. When I was young there was a concept called Tough Love, and it still makes sense to me. You really aren’t helping your loved ones – or anybody – when you don’t hold them to higher standards for their behavior.

A woman who spoke to my health science class in college talked about the concept of “enabling”. Enabling means allowing people to behave badly, whether it’s drug addiction or spousal abuse or just plain dysfunctional Behavior towards friends. Enabling means not holding people accountable for their actions.

The city of Chico, in its Declaration of a shelter crisis, allowing these creeps to physically take over our town, is a classic enabler.

I’ll say most enablers get something for their enabling. Often times it’s just friendship, but in the case of the city of Chico, it’s the funding that comes along with this designation. I can’t remember all the figures I’ve seen and heard but I do remember that city manager Mark Orme mentioned a $450,000 Grant would be available if we congregated all of our homeless services at the fairgrounds. The shelter crisis designation would bring another pot of money, I can’t remember how much.

In closing, I’ll also say, Mark Orme is a big part of our problem. Look at how our town has deteriorated since he came here about 5 years ago. He’s the highest paid city manager we ever had, making over $200,000 in in salary, plus about an $80,000 benefits package.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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