The madness in Martinez goes on and on.
Ask anyone that can think straight, read a P&L, and give you an honest answer. They will tell you in no uncertain terms that Contra Costa County is rushing down the river without a paddle toward a roaring water fall of financial ruination.
This is because our county and state legislative leaders have made careers out of playing patsy to the public employee unions that call the shots in California.
Who can honestly bet against this scenario? First, one Supervisor—the one that wants labor support to run for a vacant Assembly seat—caves to union contract demands instead of standing up for taxpayers, then the rest fold like cheap K-Mart tents.
Knowing this, you can take this one to the bank: non-represented employees who just unionized will not accept any deal that makes them pay more to get less current and retirement benefits. They will demand the same deal the represented workers get. Done deal. More cave.
It is out and out collusion that demands a RICO investigation into the subornation of County government to the public employee unions and is dragging the County into bankruptcy.
On and on it goes: DeSaunier, Torlakson, who’s next?
Oh, and then the Supervisors have the balls to tell us that the “balanced” budget—which doesn’t account for repair and maintenance costs of County equipment and property—funds OPEB by a measly 40% (far below best practices) when in fact it is $56 million short on even that hollow promise from the last election cycle.
Unless there is immediate and radical change Contra Costa County and its taxpayers ought to declare bankruptcy right now. The problem is, too many political careers are in the way of admitting this plain as day reality.
How do we get out of this mess?
- First, on behalf of all Contra Costa taxpayers, the Contra Costa County Grand Jury should demand a full-scale Federal Department of Justice investigation into collusion between the Board of Supervisors collectively and individually, past and present, for trading favors for electoral support from unions.
This is what is going on. Everyone knows it (wink wink). And it needs to be recognized, punished, and stopped.
- Second, every Supervisor ought to immediately resign from office. Then, in November, the people agree to create a Save Contra Costa County Task Force. This working group, led by David Twa, the County Administrator, and our elected chief Finance and Public Safety officers (Assessor, Controller, Treasurer, and Sheriff) ought to be tasked soley and specifically, to create a plan that will reduce the County workforce by 30 percent and eliminate County debt within 10 years. This plan should be on the June 2010 ballot.
- Third, send Mark DeSaulnier to Congress from CD-10. Just get him out of Dodge. This is what IBMers call “f**king the guy up the ladder,” by promoting incompetents simply to get them out of the way of the real work.
- Fourth, We need to better incentivize our leaders. Any person seeking County office, as a condition of pulling candidate papers should be made to pledge with a personal bond (amount and criteria TBD) to safeguard taxpayer interests to be considered for the vacant seats that ensue. This is the only way to incentivize politicians who have never had to pay for their career advancement in collusion with labor.
- Fifth, current county and state office holders who refuse to support these steps ought to be arrested for obstruction of justice.
Let your neighbors know what you think.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Kris,
If you have not seen the CalPers presentation I suggest you request Doug Pipes present it to you and you association. I know at one point he was trying to contact you but I do not know the result but I highly recommend you view it. The Count would save $17M out of the gate which is better than what is going on now.
And where was your group when the Count spent $19M on the Ellinwood Bldg. And I will remind you that it is a leased bldg and my husband had a scaffold crew out there and said the County was wasting money. Where was your group when the BOS gave themselves a 60% raise???? I also now that you have been given the list of wasteful expenditures from Health Services by a Health Services employee. What has been done about that.???? You may think “nickle and dime” but those nickle and dimes add up.
I encourage you to look to and work wuth the County Employees that are organizing for IFPTE Local 21 for solutions to the problem. Heck I encourage you and your association to look to the County Employees in general as we have no politcal asperations. We just want fair compensation for a job well done. And FYI – allot of us are homeowners/taxpayers in this county too.
County Employee and BGR: Let’s try to take the emotion out of this discussion and simply look at the presentation on the County budget made by Contra Costa CAO David Twa on March 17th. For the next six years, the County is facing a flat revenues and dramatically rising costs. Mr. Twa, whose analytical skills I admire, is telling it like it is. Since the County has only a limited capacity to raise revenue, costs must be reduced or the County will face bankruptcy – that is my word not Mr. Twa’s, but somebody had to say it.
Over the years various Boards of Supervisors have made bad financial decisions. These include the long ago decision to grant retiree health care benefits, but not set aside funds to pay for them (this debt alone now amounts to $1.7 billion), the infamous 3% at 50 retirement decision, and the more recent nursing contract that ended up giving County nurses a combination of pay/benefits that puts them far above nurses in the private sector. And, yes, the Board is now facing the public relations fallout for granting themselves that large raise. My concern was not as much for the amount, but the message it sent because they cited comparability with their peers and that set a precedent for all other wage/benefit demands.
I don’t find playing the blame game particularly satisfying because it leads to the same bottom line: the County must reduce the services it provides and/or the way it provides them and/or reduce the cost in some way. Mr. Twa’s memo indicates that the current cuts are just the first. How can it be otherwise?
County Employee should be wary of lawsuit threats until he/she familiarizes themselves with the results of the Vallejo bankruptcy decision. The court ruled there that union contracts could be overridden.
I think we would all agree, that current retirees should be protected. Beyond that, everyone needs to eliminate the adversarial position and look at ways to solve the County’s problems. The recent Grand Jury report on up to $5 million that could be saved annually be closing the county’s juvenile ranch in Byron is a creative example.
Dear Editor,
You are so far to the right you need a reality check.
The County was given a proposal to place the Health Care in CalPers hands and they said “no” as they would lose “control”. First it would immediately save $17M a year and “control” look where their control has gotten them. Also they are trying to force all employees on the County Health Plan so that the Health Plan can supplement the hospital and care to all the illegals. And that is another thing. The amount of General Fund money spent on illegals in this county is rediculous. Millions are spent on translation services etc for all the Mexicans. The tax paying public should be outraged by all the taxpayer dollares spent on the illegals but it is sooooo much easier to blame a Deputy Sheriff, Custodian or Clerk for the County woes.
Another note I encourage you and all your right wing friends to come to the BOS meeting Tuesday 3/31 to listen to the Budget Propsal IFPTE has for the County. Undoubtedly the County will ignore it as the BOS likes to whine and make all the workers, including Mr Twa look like the bad ones. Educate yourself to both sides of the story before print your garbage.
~ EDITOR REPLIES — Calling people names like right wing is inaccurate and not helpful analysis, nor effective argument. Besides, you are the one that started harping about money wasted on illegals, not me. So who’s the right winger, anyways?
That small point aside, the reality check is the County is broke and cannot afford to go forward without major restructuring of debt and budget. Lots of oxes are going to get gored before it’s over.
Employees are not the enemy. The enemies are Supervisors, their monied supporters, and union leaders that collude to debauch the finances of the County in the name of more power for union bosses and unearned and unaccountable advancement for pathetic politicians that place their blessed career over the commonwealth.
BGR
I am not in a Union. Not all County workers are in a Union. If I was in a Union I would tell them not to support any of the BOS when election time comes. I do not plan on supporting any of them
Also most of us could have made more money salary wise in the private sector but felt that the trade of salaries for benefits was an equitable one. Like most of the general public you are sooooo ignorant as to what really goes on in the County. The CC Times and Tax Payers Assoc seem to publish salaries and benefits of the Safety Employees. Most of us are not Safety Employees and do not get the same package they get. I don feel that the Safety Employees have earn every single dime the get but the Nurses are another story.
Until you walk in our shoes you have no room to comment because you know absolutely nothing.
~ EDITOR REPLIES — To argue that no one can judge because they don’t wear the same shoes is specious. Please go make more in the private sector. I bet you can’t.
To suggest some tradeoff between salary and benefits is also specious. As if benefits don’t cost anything. Your salary and benefits dwarf anything anyone in the private sector would hope to get in their wildest dreams.
To intimate that the public is “sooooooo ignorant” as if there are so many shady secret dealings going on in County administration of its employees only underscores the need to dismantle such a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Reading thru the County Admin’s proposed budget report is plenty enough verifiable evidence compared to your precious “insider knowledge” and antecdotal tales of woe only you’ve seen.
LOL
County Worker, let me tell you what I think.
- In an age when most people I know have lost their pensions and perhaps their home, have to go back to work or whose college fund has disappeared,
- As someone who is pretty much guaranteed a wage, benefits, and an obscene pension funded by taxpayers who are being robbed by their leaders in Martinez and Sacramento who without fail cave to your union contract demands to get elected to higher office,
- your comment is especially tone deaf as well as unseemly selfish tit for tat.
Your complaint about Supervisor raises, while salient, is dwarfed when compared to the damage they’ve done creating an unsustainable structural deficit just so they can get reelected or rise in incompetence to a higher office with your union support.
If you don’t like Supervisor raises then instruct your union leaders to withdraw all support from current Supervisors and their runs for reelection or Assembly and Senate.
But you won’t do that.
If you don’t like the fact that Supervisor Piepho went to Hawaii for an important family function planned years in advance, then instruct your union leaders to withdraw all support from current Supervisors and their runs for reelection or Assembly and Senate.
But you won’t do that.
Your harping about favoritism to nurses and COLAs only underscores your money grubbing selfishness in this time of economic crisis.
If you and your colleagues were really about working people and those in need you would be aghast at the destruction your way of life is bringing in the form of unfathomable debt to your neighbors and immediately demand that your union leaders change your retirement from defined benefit to defined contribution effective January 1, 2009
But you won’t do that.
Run back to your union bosses and their sock puppet politicians and live the good life while you can. Cause when the County goes belly up your job, your protections, your princely pension, all at the expense of taxpayers who simply cannot pay anymore for your extravagance will —poof— be gone, just like everyone else’s.
There is a way to prevent this fairly and honestly.
But you won’t do that.
You only know one side of the story. First off the county is trying to deny representation right to the unrepresented employees. This is illeagal. Just what they need another law suit. The retirees are gearing up for one and no the unreperented employees can file one too.
And why are you not questioning the 64% raise the board got. The last contract signed by the rank and file employees was for 3 years with the following COLA’s:
Yr 1 = 0
Yr 2 = 2%
Yr 3 + 2%
Shortly after that contract was signed the BOS gave themselves a 60% raise (plus a $700 mo car allowance and $200 for each committee meeting they attend) and they also got both of the 2% COLA’s.
And ask yourselves where Mary Piepho was during the budget hearing 3/17….She was in Maui!!!!!!!!!!! I guess the budget hearing were not that important.
And I won’t get into how CNA is the Union that controls the County. Seems no matter how broke the County is they find money for the Nurses.
I would like to know who wrote the article on Madness in Martinez?