"...Local public agencies have been enacting cuts to personnel and services for the past year, and budgets for the 2009-10 fiscal year include significant shortfalls that will only be addressed through more reductions.
Santa Barbara County has been bracing for a $15 million 2009-10 budget deficit by looking at the effects of 10-percent, across-the-board cuts.
Predictions show that the county Sheriff’s Department stands to lose the most funding if the Board of Supervisors goes along with that approach.
Public-safety personnel make up 50 percent of the Santa Maria city budget, while Lompoc supports its fire and police departments with 74 percent of the city’s unrestricted revenue.
If additional cuts are required, the effects eventually will be felt in public-safety services, officials said.
In Santa Maria and Lompoc, negotiations have begun with labor unions and employees in an attempt to ease the strain on the municipal budgets, officials said...."
LA Times: One of L.A.'s biggest pensioners warns of the costs (talk about the fox guarding the henhouse)
"Los Angeles Councilman Bernard Parks, City Hall's budget committee chief who is warning that soaring payroll and pension costs threaten the city's financial stability, receives $22,000 a month in city retirement benefits, in addition to his $178,789 a year salary, records and interviews show.
A former Los Angeles Police Department chief who served 38 years on the force, Parks operates in a sensitive political role, heading the key council panel that has grappled with a recession-driven $530-million budget shortfall....
..."There are going to be those very highly paid [public employees] who end up with large pensions," she said. But people should not "use public sector workers and retirees as political footballs. These are real people retiring on an average of $40,000 a year," she said. City civilian retirees average $3,319 a month in pension payments; police and fire pensioners average $4,486, officials said...."
LA Times: Judges exempt from pay cut that will affect other court employees
Desert Sun: Former chief testifies against city
"A former Desert Hot Springs police chief, testifying Wednesday in a wrongful termination lawsuit he and two other former employees brought against the city of Desert Hot Springs, said he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and suffered from depression as a result of his firing in 2005...."
0 comments:
Post a Comment