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 election season, so every California Democrat politician is out there on the campaign trail, precinct walking with their “friends” in labor, and speaking to labor organizations and anyone else who will listen.  They are speaking with one voice–that ” we are proud to stand up for working families.” This may sound like a great...

The town of Corte Madera, CA, makes up for what it lacks in size and population, roughly 4 square miles with 9,425 residents, in its exorbitant government compensation packages. City government has approximately 43 full time employees with the average compensation package coming in at over $170,000. That means every man, woman and child in...

In what may be the most embarrassing California-related headline to appear in a while, Reuters announced last month: Tony resort city mulls bankruptcy, blaming wages, pensions. That supposedly “tony” city is Desert Hot Springs, on the northern edge of the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs. Though it’s certainly true that Palm Springs and many of its...

“Jennifer Muir, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Employees’ Association, which represents more than 18,000 public employees in Orange County, said the California Public Policy Center’s study was a politically motivated attack on public employees and unions. Aside from promoting the center’s anti-public employee union agenda, Muir said, the reports are misleading and shift focus away...

Individuals who oppose comprehensive and fundamental reform of public employee compensation can only be considered to be in denial. Almost every government agency in the country is going broke right now. Almost all are cutting back services and reducing staff. Government is diminishing at the state and local levels before our very eyes. Our streets...

California state controller John Chiang has unveiled a website that tracks public employee pay. Unfortunately, the website provides grossly misleading information. The data compiled and summarized on this website report average wages that are literally one half to one-third the amount of total compensation actually earned by California’s state and local public servants. The impact...