Chico Taxpayers Association

Our first quiz, based on this article:

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

Read the questions below carefully, refer back to the article, and go ahead and use google if you want, I always do. You can also comment below, and yeah, you can be anonymous. You can even use a fake e-mail, I wouldn’t know the difference. 

If we get enough people to participate, I may award prizes. Next time I’ll do it in a poll, so there’s no cheating. This is just a fun run. 

Sacramento City Measure U passed with what percentage?

1. 2/3’s voter approval
2. 100 percent
3. 57 percent
4. it failed

What did Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg promise Sacramento voters if they passed Measure U?

1. the new revenue would not go to employee pensions
2. that he would “invest new city resources in economic development, disadvantaged neighborhoods, the creative economy and real pathways for young people.”
3. told voters the majority of the revenue generated by U would go toward a series of projects to uplift the city’s disadvantaged neighborhoods and to increase the city tax base
4. all of the above

What did Sacramento City Council vote unanimously to do after the measure was passed?

1.  directed budget officials to place new Measure U revenue into the general fund, which pays for most basic city services, salaries and pensions
2.  asked the city treasurer to come back in the coming weeks with a plan to securitize $25 million of new Measure U revenue per year to create a capital equity fund. That fund could raise about $400 million upfront through the sale of bonds that would be repaid by Measure U receipts 
3. proposed the second pot of roughly $25 million in new Measure U revenue per year be set aside for achieving economic equity.
4. all of the above

What issue splits the council?

1. getting out of CalPERS
2. securitization of Measure U funds
3. firing their city manager
4. paying the pension deficit

What does “securitization” mean?

1. making sure to lock the doors at city hall every night
2. describes the process by which groups of such illiquid assets (usually debts) are packaged, bought, securitized and sold to investors.
3. placing revenues in secured funds and limiting them to specified uses determined by the voters
4. all of the above

What does “illiquid mean”?

1. solid
2. nothing it’s a typo
3. Illiquid refers to the state of a stock, bond, or other assets that cannot easily be sold or exchanged for cash without a substantial loss in value {a company may be illiquid if it is unable to obtain the cash necessary to meet debt obligations)
4. incontinent

ANSWERS: (backwards) 3, 2, 2, 1, 4, 3

Scoring:

6 of 6 – write a letter to Chico City Council

5 of 6 – write a letter to Chico City Council

4 of 6 – write a letter to Chico City Council

3 of 6 – hang in there, and keep reading

2 of 6 – hang in there, and keep reading

1 of 6 – really? You’re not trying. I made this thing easy enough for a high school kid to figure out, read the articles again!

I notice a lot of people are writing letters to the editor these days – so many, apparently, Enterprise Record staffers can’t keep up!  You’d think they’d run more letters per day, maybe expand the letters page. Instead they wait until they have an enormous backlog and folks are complaining and then they barf a bunch of letters all at once, like they did this morning. 

The result being, at least two letters about the Orange Street “low barrier” shelter that would have been pertinent a week ago but are now moot because the Jesus Center announced yesterday they will not be pursuing that idea.  And, in a pile like they printed this morning, important letters can be overlooked.  Here’s a letter that warrants a good read:

Don’t Fall for the City Council’s Tax Increase Lies

In FY 2017-18 city revenues grew at 7.4%. Director Dowell told the City Council revenue growth is expected to continue. Yet Director Orme said the city has a revenue problem that requires tax increases. Despite increased revenue the City continues to let our infrastructure crumble.

Mayor Stone tells us city employee compensation costs will double in less than ten years and CalPERs will be devouring 25% of the City’s budget by 2023. (That assumes an unrealistic CalPERS 7% return rate.) Stone admits this is unsustainable.

The obvious answer: pension reform.

Instead the City Council is giving tens of thousands of your tax dollars to a PR firm to sell you a tax increase. Their pitch will be that the money is needed to fund infrastructure and public safety. That’s a lie. It’s needed because for years the City has put unrealistic pension promises ahead of everything else and the City Council has no intention of changing that.

Other cities in California have taken the same approach. Instead of fixing the problem the result has been demands for even higher taxes.

Initial estimates indicate the City Council’s tax increase would cost a family of four an extra $1200 a year. This in a county with a 21% poverty rate where city bureaucrats have pensions worth millions. It’s unconscionable.

This is how democracy fails. The people need to let the city’s politicians know loudly and clearly that this will not be tolerated. Email debbie.presson@chicoca.gov to voice your disapproval to the entire Council.

Dave Howell, Chico

Dave Howell is right – democracy can’t work when the voters are willfully misinformed by their elected and appointed officials. City staffers talk out of both sides of their mouths. If you listen to the propaganda blitz in the local media, you hear we are nearly broke and need a tax measure, but attend a meeting, or read a report, and you see that city revenues are constantly growing.

Utility Tax revenues, for example, are projected to increase almost a million dollars a year. Every time PG&E and Cal Water rates go up the city cash registers are ringing. The flurry of home sales and now new construction are bloating city coffers with higher property taxes and new home  fees. And new housing will provide more utility tax, it’s just an endless cycle. 

But even with a healthy revenue stream our self-serving staff can’t pay their outrageous pensions without gutting services all over town? But they manage to come up with $8 million a year – siphoned out of even “dedicated funds” –  to pay down the pension deficit? Pensions eat 18% of our budget. 

Council tells us they’ve achieved pension reform – they asked staff to pay another 3 percent, making employee share a BFD figure of 11 percent. We, the taxpayers, are on the hook for the rest. Time to take that hook out of your mouth and demand REAL pension reform – meaning, all employees, not just new hires, must pay their own pensions. Or they need to hit the road.

Employees, including city mismanager Mark Orme and his wrecking crew, must go before council every year to have their contracts renewed. Why do we allow them to keep renewing  these contracts without demanding that they pay their own pensions?

Like Howell says, ask your council members about that. 

I got the following report from the “No on Measure K” folks in Marysville, Yuba County. 

Currently the county is in litigation with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and two local residents over  sales tax increase measure K that passed in November. Plaintiffs are charging the measure was a special tax and should have been required to have 2/3’s approval from the voters, but was run as a general tax and barely passed with a simple majority. 

Throughout the campaign the county not only used public safety as bait, used taxpayer funds to run their campaign, but also repeatedly denied they had a pension deficit. 

Get aload of one supervisor’s response to a citizen’s evidence of pension deficit – “I know that you really want the numbers to back up the talking point that Measure K is all about CalPERS increases, but the numbers just don’t support that claim.”  

Of course, now that they passed their measure with a questionable margin they not only deny it was a special tax but also admit they have a $147 million UAL (unfunded accrued liability). 

This is what we can expect from the city of Chico and Chico Area Recreation District as they pursue their revenue measures.  They will bully us, they will lie to us, they will simply refuse us, but we have to keep squeezing out the truth.  We have to make sure the propaganda isn’t the only thing the voters hear in the coming year. 

From Yuba County No on Measure K:

For many, and many months [Yuba County Supervisor] Robert Bendorf and all five Yuba County Supervisor’s have denied that there is a large CalPERS liability looming. One Yuba County resident worked long and hard to find the truth. He pulled the CalPERS publically published pension numbers, examined the Yuba County budgets and he even had a CPA double check the numbers (They were correct).

All those numbers, pointed to the same thing, Yuba County was in a deep pension hole.

That same concerned resident, ran the numbers by Yuba County Supervisor Gary Bradford for his comment. Gary Bradford publicly stated over and over again: “I know that you really want the numbers to back up the talking point that Measure K is all about CalPERS increases, but the numbers just don’t support that claim.”

All his efforts were met with rude, evasive comments, verbal attacks and lies. Facebook posts during this time ridiculed any notion that there is a problem with CalPERS.

Fast forward a few months……….

The County and Supervisors PROMISED that Measure K (don’t you trust us?) is all for safety – well that was then, now they are claiming in Court (where the Legality of Measure K is coming into question) that it wasn’t about safety.

That is a moving target – was it or wasn’t it a safety measure???

With Measure K, increased revenue estimates are predicted to swell the Yuba County coffers by about $4.5 million annually (that’s another moving target).

Between the Miscellaneous and Safety Budgets, the county owes $147.6 Million to the pension pot ($106.8 Million for the Miscellaneous and $40.7 Million to the Safety Unfunded Accrued Pension Liabilities). They have to make payments to try and catch up.

But, paraphrasing Gary Bradford again “CalPERS isn’t a problem”

It’s bitter sweet to note that all five Yuba County supervisors will be meeting April 23rd 2019, to……

“Conduct a workshop to discuss options for addressing the County’s unfunded employee pension liability”

(see Agenda Topic 23 – Title:
County Administrator: Conduct a workshop to discuss options for addressing the County’s unfunded employee pension liability and provide further direction to staff. (20 minutes estimate)
https://agendasuite.org/iip/yuba/meeting/details/126….

Reading through the public document for the supervisors comments, they state “In recent years, the CalPERS Board made a series of decisions regarding assumptions for future costs of pensions, mostly on life expectancy and assumed investment returns, which have resulted in a significant escalation in the County’s unfunded accrued liability (UAL). Despite the County having made all required payments, over a seven-year period from FY 2010-11 through FY 2016-17 the assumption changes have resulted in an increase of $58.9 million (66.4%) in the UAL.”

A few months ago, the County said there wasn’t a Pension problem, but now they are meeting to discuss options to try and address the Pension Problem.

A few months ago, the County said it’s all about Safety, but now they are claiming in Court that it wasn’t about safety.

What a curious World our Yuba County Supervisors live in:
Where a Problem isn’t a problem, but then is
Where it was all about safety, but then isn’t.

You have to click on this post (title) to vote. Thanks for participating.  You can only vote once but feel  free to comment at the bottom of the post.

UPDATE: That was fun, I was surprised how many people participated, but no surprise at the results – 85% joined Chico State President Gayle Hutchinson in expressing disapproval of putting a low-barrier (anything goes) shelter a block from the college. 

My kid is at University of Nevada, where they have a zero tolerance policy regarding “walkers” – transients are not allowed anywhere on campus. Workers, like my son, have radios, and whenever they see somebody who is obviously not a student or employee they are instructed to call security immediately. It makes me feel better to know they are serious about student safety at UNR,  Meanwhile, here in Chico we’ve had a transient murder right on campus and reports of armed robberies and dead transients in the college neighborhoods. 

Hutchinson, if she’s sincere about what she says about the shelter, should also do something to get the transients off campus, away from campus housing facilities, and out of the student parking areas. 

And hey, let me know if you think of a good question for another poll, that was fun!

I asked my friend in Marysville about the latest news regarding the lawsuit Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and two Yuba County citizens have taken to court over Yuba County’s recently enacted 1 cent sales tax increase – Ballot Measure K.

The issue at hand is whether or not Measure K was promoted as a special tax, and therefore needed 2/3’s vote instead of 55%. The county now denies it was marketed as a special tax. But my friend recalls the campaign, “promises everywhere were made that it would go into a Special Fund. All of those safety meetings, polls/surveys, signs with flames and badges saying Keep Yuba County Safe. All the flyers and FB posts with promises after promises.”

She says the plaintiffs have “about 100 emails with proof of all of this. A County document that was done in Sept 2018 has how the Measure K money will be spent. 93% was designated to safety. 7% to essential services. “

Unfortunately the court recently refused the injunction to stop the tax increase until the trial, set for the end of August. So the increase went into effect April 1 – how appropriate. Folks are being told they can keep their receipts, and get a refund later if the lawsuit is successful. Like my friend says,  “Ridiculous.”  Imagine yourself sitting over that shoebox full of receipts, figuring the .01% refund on your cell phone calculator.

We’ll have to watch this one!