Janitor Liang Zhao Zhang cleans transit stations in downtown San Francisco, but he really cleans up with his six-figure salary. Last year, the Bay Area Rapid Transit employee earned just over $271,000. Zhang’s high earnings come to light this week, just days before BART will ask voters to approve Measure RR, a $3.5 billion bond aimed at “relieving...
Nice Benefits! Add in health and retirement, and 128 L.A. County lifeguards earned total compensation of over $100,000 last year. Los Angeles County boasts the world’s largest professional lifeguard association. But most of the association’s 850 guards work seasonally. The incomes of the 150 year-round lifeguards can seem surprisingly rich to anyone raised on the...
Dropout Nation recently reported on the American Federation of Teachers’ 2015-2016 financial disclosure to the U.S. Department of Labor. As you would expect, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union spent big on influencing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her apparatchiks, as well as pouring heavily into what should be like-minded advocacy and nonprofit groups. But AFT’s...
“The state shall not have any liability for the payment of the retirement savings benefit earned by program participants pursuant to this title.” – California State Senator Kevin De Leon, August 7, 2016, Sacramento Bee This quote from Senator De Leon, one of the main proponents of California’s new “Secure Choice” retirement program for private...
Vernon, California is so famous for its history of corruption that it was the municipal star of season two of HBO’s “True Detective” series. Now the tiny L.A. County city can claim another achievement: Vernon is the only California city with more public employees than residents. Vernon’s 210 residents are served by 271 city employees,...
It’s been 19 months since the U.S. Department of Justice released its scathing report on the Ferguson Police Department. Chief among the DOJ’s findings: Ferguson’s law enforcement practices were “shaped by the city’s focus on revenue rather than public safety needs.” Nearly every policing activity – including tickets, misdemeanor fines and court fees – was...
I have studied U.S. and California politics in particular since the mid-1990s, and believe the case for limited government is stronger now, than at any other time in history. A series of emerging trends have coalesced to produce a political environment that makes it very unwise to try to enact sweeping policy change in today’s...
The Legislature is in adjournment, and with lawmakers at home campaigning for reelection, they are unable to engage in their favorite pastime of undermining Proposition 13 and its protections for California taxpayers. However, this time out is only a brief respite from the Sacramento politicians’ inexorable pursuit of taxpayers’ wallets, the ferocity of which matches...
Does that fact have your attention? Because media consultants insist we preface anything of substance with a hook like this. It even has the virtue of being true! And now, for those with the stomach for it, let’s descend into the weeds. According to payroll and benefit data reported by the City of Costa Mesa...
California business leaders are unanimous in their desire for the California Legislature to proactively improve the state’s business climate, as opposed to only enacting policies that will further hinder economic growth. But it is far less understood how to actually get to a place where the Legislature both acknowledges that there are major issues with...
Labor Day 2016 continues to show improving conditions within California’s economy. The Legislature has just concluded a session that is being described as one of the most progressive ever for environmental and labor union policies. And Governor Brown is looking at over 700 new laws on his desk. His signature or veto will directly impact...
The one thing some pension reformers say is needed to cut the cost of unaffordable public pensions: give current workers a less costly retirement benefit for work done in the future, while protecting pension amounts already earned. It’s allowed in the remaining private-sector pensions. But California is one of about a dozen states that have...
“‘What makes the ‘$100,000 Club’ some magic number denoting abuse other than the claims of anti-pension zealots?’ said Dave Low, chairman of Californians for Retirement Security, a coalition of 1.6 million public workers and retirees.” This quote from a government union spokesperson, and others, were dutifully collected as part of Orange County Register reporter Teri...
As a professor of public budgeting and someone who has worked their entire career analyzing public budgets, I can say that ballot box budgeting wreaks havoc on the California budget process and taxpayer interests. Yet it is something that voters are so accustomed to doing that most average voters don’t even know what “ballot box...