"80 percent of the state, county and city budget deficits are due to employee costs" (San Francisco: buying, bankrupt)

[OC Investor2]

Who said it? None other then that well known arch conservative - WILLIE BROWN

If we as a state want to make a New Year's resolution, I suggest taking a good look at the California we have created. From our out-of-sync tax system to our out-of-control civil service, it's time for politicians to begin an honest dialogue about what we've become.

Take the civil service.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/03/BA2V1BBGHH.DTL#ixzz0dgrLoD23

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by OC Investor2

Who said it? None other then that well known arch conservative - WILLIE BROWN




Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/03/BA2V1BBGHH.DTL#ixzz0dgrLoD23

There's no question about it. He's right.

[Huckleberry3911948]

per op
that is very true.
that is bek to get the people to put up with our baloney we have to pay them. btw most of our deficit does not come from salaries it come form medical cost overrun, aka illegal immigration abuse of the system.

[wburg]

A remarkable amount of the information in that article is not true. Civil service employees generally make less, not more, than the private sector. Retiring public employees making almost as much as they made while working is an exceptionally rare circumstance (generally, only law enforcement personnel working 25-30 year careers.) And the entire payroll for every state employee adds up to about two-thirds of next year's California budget deficit. Meaning that if you managed to convince every state employee to work for no money, you'd still have a deficit.

Read the column again. It isn't exactly carefully edited:

With the Transamerica Pyramid in the background, Napolitano admitted that it was a total breakdown of both our intelligence and transpiration security operation that allowed suspected terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board a Northwest Airlines flight to the United States, putting 300 lives in jeopardy.

Transpiration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[humboldtrat]

Originally Posted by wburg

A remarkable amount of the information in that article is not true. Civil service employees generally make less, not more, than the private sector. Retiring public employees making almost as much as they made while working is an exceptionally rare circumstance (generally, only law enforcement personnel working 25-30 year careers.) And the entire payroll for every state employee adds up to about two-thirds of next year's California budget deficit. Meaning that if you managed to convince every state employee to work for no money, you'd still have a deficit.

Read the column again. It isn't exactly carefully edited:


Transpiration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You must be a public employee.

[eureka1]

So was I until recently. That has no bearing on truth or falsehood. The article is sloppily stated. Many businesses spend 80% of budget on salaries and benefits. Does that mean the employees are responsible for (any) mismanagement? I used to say there were two kinds of people in the world-government employees and those who couldn't pass the test. Now that the State has become a second-rate employer which will have problems filling vacancies as soon as the recession passes, don't look for any improvements in service. I am amazed at what CALTRANS and the local emergency staff were able to accomplish during our recent earthquake and its aftermath but services cost $$$$$ and no one wants to pay.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

One big problem is that public employees are organized, meaning in a union. In the past people did not become part of a union when they became a public employee. When you work for the state you are basically saying I would rather have security than anything else. For the most part public employees were not laid off, had all the holidays ever invented off, and in the end would still have a retirement. They had no need to become a member of a union. Unions were set up when people did not have the kind of benefits that public employees have always had. Get rid of the public employee unions and you get rid of the problem. Make it so that our elected officials can not accept money from any union and that will help. We are bankrupting ourselves and the public employees that are being represented by the unions are the cause of it.

[Sassberto]

- most businesses spend the majority of their budgets on employees.
- many public employees are now as well paid, or in many cases better paid, than their counterparts in the private sector, especially among low-skill jobs. Public safety is not representative of the public workforce as a whole.

[humboldtrat]

The problem is that 80% of government budget goes towards salaries and gold-plated pensions and health care. The remaining 20% doesn't go very far in maintaining roads, buying school books, helping the elderly, water projects, etc. Government is not a jobs program. Its purpose is to provide services to all citizens. Many of the taxpayers footing the bill don't earn as much as government employees and many don't have pension and/or health care plans.

I recently read that a streetsweeper in Palo Alto was earning $71K/year + benefits - just for sweeping the streets! How are the rest of you doing?

[humboldtrat]

And while I'm on a rant, San Francisco has a budget of $6.5 BILLION - bigger than the budget of 20 other states - and they still have a deficit of $500 million. Where in the %@*! is all this money going? They can barely keep up with fixing potholes, getting the busses to run on time, keep the streets clean or do much of anything else. However, they are very good at jacking up transit fares and increasing fines and fees on just about everything else.