Cities facing fiscal mess plead with CalPERS as pensions consume local budgets
Cities facing fiscal mess plead with CalPERS as pensions consume local budgets
Sacramento – If you ask the union-controlled California Public Employees’ Retirement System about the state’s looming pension crisis, you’re likely to get this answer: What pension crisis? But the story was much different at CalPERS’ own Finance and Administration Committee meeting held Sept. 19. City officials from across California warned CalPERS board members about the...
By Steven Greenhut
California’s soaring poverty rates tied to its fiscal irresponsibility
California’s soaring poverty rates tied to its fiscal irresponsibility
Sacramento The U.S. Census Bureau’s latest statistics, released this month, find that California’s poverty rate remains the highest in the nation, despite dipping ever so slightly. The reason is no surprise: It’s tied largely to the state’s unusually high cost of living. Yet despite Democratic lawmakers’ oft-stated concern about rising income inequality, they spent the...
By Steven Greenhut
Bill would make meal-delivery services ripe for union organizing
Bill would make meal-delivery services ripe for union organizing
Sacramento — One of California’s burgeoning “new economy” business models is the meal-subscription plan, by which companies such as Blue Apron send recipes and prepackaged gourmet ingredients to subscriber’s homes – everything they need to prepare a fresh meal. It’s great for folks who like to cook, but have little patience for grocery shopping. Blue...
By Steven Greenhut
‘Cherry picking’? Union-run schools dump struggling kids on charters
‘Cherry picking’? Union-run schools dump struggling kids on charters
Sacramento — Teachers’ union leaders hoping to discount the runaway academic success of charter schools have claimed charters lure the best-performing kids, leaving traditional, union-run public schools to handle poor-performing and struggling students. In its statement launching the anti-charter “Kids Not Profits” campaign, for instance, the California Teachers’ Association claimed that charters “cherry-pick the students...
By Steven Greenhut
Deputies’ pension and pay deals driving ‘contract’ cities to financial brink
Deputies’ pension and pay deals driving ‘contract’ cities to financial brink
Sacramento More than a decade ago, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department offered a good value to cities that wanted to provide police services without having to operate their own departments. However, years of excessive salary and pension increases have driven up the costs of the contracts and could drive cities toward the brink of bankruptcy....
By Steven Greenhut
TAPped out: The method to CalPERS’ madness toward tiny Sierra County city
TAPped out: The method to CalPERS’ madness toward tiny Sierra County city
Sacramento — Observers have wondered in recent months why the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the nation’s largest state pension fund and one of Wall Street’s most muscular financial players, has taken such a hamfisted approach toward one of California’s tiniest and least-powerful cities. There’s a rational, albeit troubling, reason for its approach. After the...
By Steven Greenhut
From well-funded pensions to basket case, San Francisco’s voters are to blame
From well-funded pensions to basket case, San Francisco’s voters are to blame
WORKERS OF THE WORLD: San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, bottom center, walks with protesters during a march in San Francisco, May 1, 2017. Despite San Francisco’s pension disaster, Lee was one of several local officials who recently received a massive salary bump. By Steven Greenhut and David Schwartzman Sacramento — Pension reformers had for years...
By Steven Greenhut
Same old story as Loyalton’s woes echo growing pension crisis
Same old story as Loyalton’s woes echo growing pension crisis
Sacramento The tiny Sierra Nevada mountain town of Loyalton, Calif.—population: 862—has become the poster child for cities that want to check out of the California Public Employee’s Retirement System, but can’t swallow the insurmountable cost of leaving. Loyalton’s oft-repeated tale appeared again this week, on Sunday in the Los Angeles Times. All the familiar characters are there,...
By Steven Greenhut
In policing and teaching, union rules protect workers at expense of public
In policing and teaching, union rules protect workers at expense of public
Sacramento America’s public school systems are notorious for their rubber rooms. That’s where teachers deemed unfit to work in a classroom pass the time as their disciplinary actions or terminations move through the convoluted system. This can take years, and while it does, the teachers collect their full paychecks as they twiddle their thumbs. It’s...
By Steven Greenhut
Union bill will drive up counties’ costs of providing services
Union bill will drive up counties’ costs of providing services
Sacramento – Municipal governments exist to provide essential services, such as law enforcement, firefighting, parks and recreation, street repairs and programs for the poor and homeless. But as pension, health-care and other compensation costs soar for workers and retirees alike, local governments are struggling to fulfill these basic functions. There’s even a term to describe...
By Steven Greenhut
Cap-and-trade passage is about raising taxes, divvying up the spoils
Cap-and-trade passage is about raising taxes, divvying up the spoils
Sacramento What were Gov. Jerry Brown, legislative Democrats and eight Republicans thinking Monday, as they voted to extend the state’s cap-and-trade system for another decade, something that will impose higher gas taxes on Californians who already face a recent gas-tax hike? Are officials ignoring public rumblings, or was Brown’s doomsday rhetoric about global warming really...
By Steven Greenhut
Expect unions to use good returns to deflect attention from growing problem
Expect unions to use good returns to deflect attention from growing problem
Sacramento California’s fiscal watchdogs are bracing for the forthcoming press statements from the nation’s largest state-run pension fund, and from the public-sector unions that depend on the system to pay their members’ generous retirement packages. Expect something to this effect: “The California Public Employees’ Retirement System’s investment earnings for the fiscal year ending June 30...
By Steven Greenhut
Legislature’s scary precedent: Giving unions private workers’ cell phones and home addresses
Legislature’s scary precedent: Giving unions private workers’ cell phones and home addresses
Sacramento Even those Capitol observers who are aware of the degree to which the Democratic-controlled Legislature is in the tank for public-sector unions might be shocked by the latest bill that’s making its way to the governor’s office. Legislators are about to require that private-sector workers in the home-care industry provide a wide range of...
By Steven Greenhut
Union dues hike spotlights need for high-court intervention
Union dues hike spotlights need for high-court intervention
Sacramento —A recent action by one of nation’s largest public-employee unions illustrates the importance of an Illinois case that might make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court sometime next year. The technical dispute involves the complex process by which public-sector unions assess dues to those who don’t want to be members. But the real...
By Steven Greenhut