This article originally appeared in the California Globe. In response to a recent California Policy Center analysis that provided an updated calculation of the average pay and benefits for full-time firefighters working for cities in California, one commenter claimed that it has become difficult to recruit firefighters. The accuracy of this claim carries significant implications. When employers...
When reflecting on Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent recall victory, a friend of the California Policy Center reminded me of a scene in the film Indecent Proposal. Woody Harrelson’s character had just been left by the love of his life, who’d run off with another man. Before handing divorce papers over to his soon-to-be ex, played...
In March 2020, for the first time in a generation, Californians did not approve the overwhelming majority of new tax and bond proposals that were put before them. Out of 125 proposed local bonds, only 31 percent passed; out of 111 proposed local tax increases, only 41 percent passed. Early returns from the November 2020 ballot show Californians...
In 2012, San Diego voters approved Proposition B, a pension reform measure that replaced pensions for new hires with a 401K plan. Seven years later, this reform is likely to be completely unwound, because union attorneys successfully argued that the city did not “meet and confer” with the unions before putting the reform measure on...
Sacramento As Napa’s deadly wildfires have subsided, newspapers and politicians are asking an interesting question in an indelicate way. How come the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, relies so heavily on thousands of prison inmates to battle the blazes alongside well-paid professional firefighters? Many observers have even used the term...
Last week we learned that a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system janitor managed to boost his annual compensation to $271,000 by clocking an enormous number of overtime hours – hours that apparently were often devoted to sleeping in a subway station closet. The revelation reminds Bay Area commuters that BART’s unreliable service comes with...
“Without disputing the figures, Monique Morrissey, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., said the findings are misleading because they do not compare specific classes of employees or account for differences in education levels and total hours worked.” California Is Golden State For Public Employees, by Michael Carroll, AMI Newswire, Jan. 31,...
Editor’s Note: Back in the early years of the 21st century, when California’s tech sector had collapsed and the stock market was down sharply, local government budgets were so strapped that they started closing their offices on Fridays, and applied “furloughs” to their employees to save money. But no public worker took an actual pay...