Showing posts with label Govt. Spending: "Let them eat cake". Show all posts
Showing posts with label Govt. Spending: "Let them eat cake". Show all posts

April 21, 2011

Here we go again?

This is starting to become a problem. Now that city budgets are getting tight in the downturn the ugly truth is coming out: mismanagement or worse, fraud and deception. Again like with City of Bell we keep saying this is due to lack of transparency and voters and media that just dont want to take the time to scrutinize what is going on a local level and everyone is so obsessed with state and national political circus played out every day. Well this is where the news channels needs to focus their energy. Real investigative reporting at the local level. With all the media we have today there is more than enough to cover local politics properly. Without the drama and party bickering that overtakes state and national politics. But if the media does not shine the light on this type of stuff then voters will never see it. Quite frankly the two reporters that broke the City of Bell story last year deserve the Pulitzer.


State controller orders audit of city of Montebello, saying there's evidence of false financial reports

April 21, 2011
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/04/allegation-of-fake-financial-reports-prompts-outside-audit-of-troubled-montebello.html

The state controller took the unusual step Thursday of ordering an outside audit of the struggling city of Montebello, saying there is evidence the city produced false financial reports dating back several years.

The action, which marks the first time officials have launched a full city audit since examining wrongdoing in Bell last year, marks an ominous turn for Montebello, which is in danger of running out of money later this year.

The working-class city east of downtown L.A. has been mired in budget problems and allegations of mismanagement and missing money for months. Last week, the city manager brought in to clean up the mess abruptly resigned. Peter Cosentini warned councilmembers that former city officials for years had used accounting tricks to hide the true nature of the city’s financial picture, making it seem as though the city had more money than it actually did.

Montebello officials discovered more than $1 million in two off-the-book bank accounts. That prompted a probe by Los Angeles County prosecutors that is still ongoing. Last month, Montebello officials said they solved the mystery, claiming the money went to a local developer as part of a complex loan to build a restaurant in the city.

In a letter to Montebello announcing the audit, state Controller John Chiang said the city was out of compliance with state laws because it had not submitted annual audits and financial reports to the state. Chiang also cited comments made by several city officials to The Times and others that financial reports might be inaccurate and included false information.

“I have concluded that there is reason to believe that the Annual Report of Financial Transactions … [is] false, incomplete or incorrect,” Chiang wrote.

Montebello Councilwoman Christina Cortez, a critic of the city’s past financial dealings, said she welcomed the audit.

“It’s unfortunate that nobody in the city understood the severity and seriousness of all the illegal activities that have been going on,” she said. “I’m glad we are finally getting a third party to investigate.”


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

September 14, 2010

Getting out while the getting is good... Howard Chambers finally calls it quits

You have to hand it to Howard for great timing. 34 years as city manager must be a state or national record. He has stress? Well no doubt that has increased since the City of Bell debacle, not to mention being "outed" here, here, and here. Oh well he can join his other retired Lakewood Calpers pals and live carefree with lifetime medical and pension benefits that will no doubt cost us taxpayers millions. (the "Lakewood Six" currently costing us taxpayers $771,322.56 Annually) Much like our other noblemen in the state legislature. And for what you ask? Oh I am sure every blade of grass in Lakewood will be dedicated to Howard tonight. I expect some sort of freeway or building to be named after him shortly. Perhaps a new "self promotion shrine" we can pay for. lol indeed.

All we can hope is that the city council resets the clock on these outlandish City Manager salaries and they are more in line with (or have a rational relationship to) other cities with similar populations and total employee counts. But knowing the city council I doubt that. Again the hiring situation works much the same as it did in Bell and on corporate boards. "You pay me well and I will reward you later...some how.." So the game goes on and no one is watching the till. Oh and as for potential candidates to fill Howard's spot I hear there are some dudes from Bell looking for a sweet job....

So LAAG says "c'est la vie! Howard". And I am sure you will keep us residents posted on what you're up to just like you have for the last 38 years. Yeah right. Oh and we have to take Howard at his word that he is in fact retiring for good and will not change his mind, like Donald Waldie did last year, and not going to "run" some other city (for a "bigger" salary increase and nifty "pension spike") and then do a "double dip" on his pension. Time will tell.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_16068235
City Manager Howard Chambers will end 38-year Lakewood career
By Phillip Zonkel, Staff Writer
Posted: 09/13/2010 08:57:06 PM PDT

LAKEWOOD - The man who has been a fixture at Lakewood City Hall for 38 years - helping balance budgets and maintain parks - is leaving.

Howard Chambers, city manager for 34 of those years, will publicly announce his retirement at tonight's City Council meeting.

Chambers said his doctor has told him for the past year to manage his stress better. The primary stress culprit is his job, Chambers said.

"Life in the public sector is extremely stressful," [LAAG: "you betcha, ever since Bell corruption story broke]
said Chambers, 65, from his Brea residence. "My body used to metabolize stress like a protein shake. Now it kicks my butt. I wish I could turn back the clock 20 years."

The council will soon begin the process of selecting Chambers' successor, said city spokesman Bill Grady.

The two-hour round trip commute between Brea and Lakewood also was a deciding factor in his retirement, Chambers said. [LAAG: I guess living in the city was out of the question in a city you manage]

Chambers is widely considered the California city manager with the longest tenure in the same city. Before becoming city manager, Chambers, from 1972 to 1976, was the executive assistant to the city manager.

Between 1969 and 1972, Chambers was Rosemead's assistant city manager.

"Howard's entire career reflects an abiding commitment to all of us who live and work here," said Lakewood Mayor Joseph Esquivel. "He truly loves Lakewood and the results can be seen in every neighborhood." [LAAG: please be specific]

Donald Waldie, the assistant to the city manager, was hired by Chambers in December 1977, and said Chambers' management style was supportive and collaborative.

"Howard offered a vision for Lakewood, one where everyone worked together to make a safe, family-orientated city, and shared it with senior managers and city work forces," Waldie said. "That vision made it easy to see the way."

Chambers' ties to Lakewood are lifelong. He grew up near Mayfair Park and worked at the YMCA.

A park director encouraged him to become a recreation leader, a path that led him to become a park director and a fixture at city hall.

After befriending the city administrator at the time, Chambers showed an interest in public administration and began taking classes at Cal State Long Beach.

After earning his degree, Chambers interned at Lakewood for two years, handling youth services. He then went to work with Rosemead as an assistant city manager.

In 1972, Chambers returned to Lakewood, securing the post of executive assistant.

Under Chambers' leadership, Lakewood developed the Civic Center, the Weingart Senior Center, the renovations of the John Sanford Todd Community Center and Mayfair Park, The Centre at Sycamore Plaza, Rynerson Park and the expansion and modernization of the Lakewood Sheriff's Station. [LAAG: thats it?]

Chambers said he takes pride in presenting balanced budgets, managing to keep park programs going and maintaining streets and other infrastructure in times of recession.

Chambers' pride and enthusiasm for the work makes it more difficult to retire.

"You don't know how much I'm going to miss it," he said.

phillip.zonkel@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1258
Want to go?

What: Lakewood City Council meeting.

Where: City Council chambers at The Centre at Sycamore Plaza, 5000 Clark Ave.

When: 7:30 p.m., today

Watch: Broadcast live on CityTV 31 and at www.lakewoodcity.org.


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

September 3, 2010

State Controller's revised Local Government Compensation Report (LGCR) due Oct. 2010

On the heels of LAAG's PRA (public information request) to the city of Lakewood regarding salaries of all top Lakewood city employees in each city department, the State Controller's office just released its Local Government Compensation Report (LGCR) for Calendar Year 2009. This report is intended to collect salary, compensation, and benefit information for all elected, appointed, and employed personnel but not independent contractors. It includes staff for all dependent special districts, redevelopment agencies, or other component units that are supported by city or county staff or any staff for which the city or county issues a W-2. This report is required to be submitted to the State Controller on or before October 1, 2010. It will be quite enlightening to see all the cities in the state comply and how user friendly the State Controllers web site is in detailing all the results so that cities can be compared head to head by taxpayers. This is a step in the right direction with more to come. LAAG will stay on top of these developments. Thank you City of Bell for making all this possible.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

August 20, 2010

City of Lakewood responds to LAAG's public records request on city employee salaries

We find it sad and disheartening that Lakewood did not step forward right after the City of Bell scandal broke like so many other cities did and post something about city hall salaries. Not a peep on the Lakewood city website about Bell or the fallout. (typical given Lakewood's usual tendency to "duck and cover") Sadly it was incumbent upon LAAG to make the CPRA (California Public Records Act) request to get something posted for all taxpayers to see. Did the Press Telegram bother? No...Where were these folks before LA Times broke the Bell scandal? Or Attorney General Jerry Brown for that matter? (who is now closing the barn door after the horse got out).... Suffice it to say that we don't trust government officials to be looking into excessive pay of their pals across the hall in government. We were glad to get these Lakewood salaries for our readers but once again a lackadaisical attitude about what city hall is up to and giving Lakewood city leaders a "pass" by letting them continue to keep things "in the dark" forcing residents to do CPRA requests is the type of atmosphere that led to the Bell scandal. Now we see more people starting to "pull their heads out" and look closer at their city halls which quite frankly are run by "rank amateurs" in the best cases and by very suspect people in the worst cases we only now know about. Most are not really "qualified" managers. I guess that is the reason cities pay guys like Rizzo the big bucks...for their excellent management and wisdom.

As for the Lakewood city employee salaries the request once again was here and the response from Lakewood is here (in the original format). Draw your own conclusions.

The problem of taxpayers and whistleblower sites/blogs not watching this topic or their respective cities in general is becoming apparent now that the veneer of "assumed trustworthiness" is being peeled back. The Oxnard story, the Indio story and now Vernon are good examples of more aftershocks (again our hats off to LA Times) 

One of the things that irritates residents and taxpayers in the private sector is that we have born the brunt of the layoffs and unemployment in this recession; not the public sector. We keep asking people to show us one full time government unionized worker that has lost his or her job in the recession permanently. Any takers? We are listening. We'd love to post proof of one real government job loss in the entire state to compare to the hundreds of thousands in the private sector.

Secondly I am tired of the BS excuses that "well we need to pay these salaries as other cities do". Well prior legislation has set limits on city council pay to end that nonsense but not that of city employee pay. I think we need to set limits based on population like the city council. This is out of control. Why should Lakewood's City manager get paid MORE than the Long Beach City manager? Makes no sense. Again folks this is not capitalism. Its tax dollars. The same principles DON'T apply. We need a "race to the bottom" not the "top" when it comes to local government employees making over $100,00 a year. But do we really think Sacramento legislators want to cut their pals pay. Or even publish it like this?

I also get tired of hearing "well people in the private sector make more for the same job". Well first that is bogus. Read this article: Federal workers earning double their private counterparts  Secondly show me a public sector job that's the same as a private sector job. Don't exist. First public sector folks cant be fired and get benefits well beyond what any private sector worker gets. That is now painfully obvious. One retired fireman I know making 140,000 a year at age 50(!) said: Calpers is like "Amway on steroids"..lol indeed.

Another thing to keep in mind about the "low" city council salaries. Some council members already have "day" jobs in the public sector. The city council job is just icing on the cake letting them "spike" their Calpers pension benefits. We already have six (former Lakewood city employees BIEGEL, JOAN $112,153.08 yr; EBNER, CHARLES $129,820.20 yr; GONSALVES, JACK $119,698.44; RODDA, DAVID $139,251.48; SCHROEDER, LAWRENCE $116,251.80; STOVER, MICHAEL $154,147.56) in the Calpers $100,00 club (which they are in for the rest of their lives from age 50 on). (see story below) We don't need any more.  I know people in the private sector already looking at this "spiking" and "piling on" angle. Nice gig. The only people that get "golden parachutes" like this is the private sector are AIG execs and we all know how popular they are. But again if its tax dollars then LAAG really gets mad. We don't care about private money. If a corporation wants to charge high prices and pay its execs a ton of money then they will loose in the "price is all we care about" recession based economy of today.

Folks its time to get real about local government and start paying attention. Stop taking things for granted. You only have yourself to blame for not getting involved and not demanding transparency and accountability from your local elected leaders. We cannot afford to trust them any more. Do we blame the rank and file government employees for accepting a kings ransom for very little work? No we would all like jobs like that. We blame taxpayers for (1) letting local government elected leaders keep things shielded from taxpayers (not timely posted on the web in detail) and (2) taxpayers not calling the city leaders on the salaries pensions and benefits once they know about it and holding them accountable. The city leaders are counting on you to let them get away with murder right in front of you. And if you do they will stick it to you in the end as these salaries will last for LIFE.

Public service pensions over $100,000 per year skyrocket
By Troy Anderson, Staff Writer
Posted: 08/15/2009 04:49:50 PM PDT

At a time when government agencies are cutting back on law enforcement, health care for children and services for the poor, the number of public servants collecting $100,000-plus pensions - including one raking in nearly $500,000 a year - has exploded in recent years, in some cases tripling or even increasing sevenfold.

In Los Angeles County, the number of retired county employees receiving pensions of $100,000 or more has nearly tripled from 1,198 in 2004 to 3,096 today, the Daily News, a sister paper of the Press-Telegram, has learned through a series of Public Records Act requests.

Throughout California, the number of retired state workers collecting $100,000-plus pensions has mushroomed more than sixfold from 816 in 2004 to 5,115 now.

And the number of school administrators and teachers collecting six-figure pensions has rocketed more than sevenfold from 427 in 2004 to 3,088 now.

Los Angeles, excluding the Department of Water and Power, currently has 600 retirees collecting more than $100,000 a year.

"This is just outrageous to me," said Marcia Fritz, vice president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, an organization that advocates statewide pension reform. "I would not have expected the number of ($100,000 pension club members) to have increased that much in the last five years."
Nearly $500,000 a year

The dubious honor of collecting the state's highest pension belongs to former Vernon City
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Administrator Bruce Malkenhorst, who receives $499,675 per year - even though he is currently facing two counts of misappropriating public funds for allegedly taking $60,000 in city money for personal use.

Malkenhorst's attorney did not return calls for comment.

The second-largest pension goes to an undisclosed Los Angeles County government retiree who is paid $366,384.

As grand juries throughout the state are investigating pension systems, former Assemblyman Keith Richman, president of CFFR, said these huge pensions are the result of a "corrupt pension system."

California, Richman said, is the only state in the nation that allows employees to use their highest year of salary - including unused vacation, vehicle allowances, bonuses and other compensation - in calculating their pensions.

"The bottom line is we have very extravagant pension benefits that taxpayers can't afford," Richman said. "Pension-spiking has played a large role in this. We have public employees throughout the state who are retiring at age 50 and collecting more than 100 percent of their salaries, getting annual cost-of-living raises and lifetime health benefits."

But union leaders bristle at the suggestion that most public workers receive extravagant retirement benefits.

Barbara Maynard, a consultant for the Coalition of LA City Unions and the Coalition of County Unions, said only a small percentage of retired public servants receive "these exorbitant pensions."

"It's really upper management who are receiving these benefits," Maynard said. "The rank-and-file workers are really struggling to get by on very meager pensions averaging $40,000 a year."
Call for rollback

The revelations about the eye-popping pensions - a by-product of what officials describe as a "Cadillac" pension system elected officials have created at the prodding of public employee unions - come as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks and others are calling on elected officials to roll back generous pension and retiree health care plans.

Schwarzenegger has estimated the unfunded retirement promises - the money the state has promised to pay over the lifetime of its employees and retirees without designating where the funds will come from - could be as much as $300 billion if investments don't meet projections.

When the state's first pension fund - the California State Teachers' Retirement System - was created in 1913, teachers who worked 30 years were paid a $500 annual pension, the equivalent of about $10,500 annually now. Over the years, other public pension systems were created and most were designed to pay public servants about half their salary in retirement.

In 1999 - at the height of the economic boom - labor unions aggressively lobbied state lawmakers to pass SB 400 - the "pension-boosting bill" - retroactively boosting pensions for state employees and allowing them to retire at younger ages with higher pensions.

Then in 2003, the California Supreme Court issued a ruling on a 1997 lawsuit allowing public employees to use bonuses, clothing and auto allowances, unused vacation and other income in calculating their pensions.

Since then, government agencies throughout the state have adopted similar plans and public employees - whose pensions are usually based on the highest year's pay - have used a variety of methods to "spike" their pensions shortly before retirement.

Now, even as the number of government workers collecting $100,000-plus pensions has skyrocketed in recent years, the pension systems charged with dispersing their checks have lost tens of billions of dollars in the stock and real estate markets.

As a result, the amount of taxpayer subsidies for these pension plans will have to be increased by billions of dollars in the years ahead, requiring more tax increases and cuts in public services.

The nation's largest public pension fund, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, has recently lost a third of its value, dropping from a high of $253 billion in December 2007 to $181 billion as of June 30.

Even before the historic stock market downturn, the annual taxpayer contribution to the fund jumped from $4.2 billion in 2003-04 to $7.2 billion last fiscal year.

CalPERS spokesman Ed Fong said the system is planning to meet with representatives from public employee unions and its 26,000 member government agencies to discuss ways to reduce costs to ensure retirees are paid the amounts owed them.

Despite failed efforts in recent years to reform the public pension and benefit systems, David Crane, special adviser to the governor for jobs and economic growth, said a growing number of Democrats and Republicans in Sacramento agree steps have to be taken.

While existing pensions can't be renegotiated, Crane said the governor plans this week to propose several reforms, including less generous pension plans for newly hired workers and increased retirement ages.

"I think the Legislature increasingly understands the nature of this problem," Crane said. "They have been issuing general obligation bonds regularly without voter consent to pay these benefits. But now the programs they care very deeply about are being shut down because we have to pay off these past pension promises."

In the same way as CalPERS recently lost a huge portion of its funds, the teachers system, CalSTRS, has dropped by a third from a high of $172 billion in 2007 to $119 billion as of June 30.

Even as taxpayer contributions to the plan have grown from $1.9 billion in 2004 to $2.3 billion in 2008, CalSTRS now says closing the shortfall will require legislative action to further increase contributions made by school districts.

Similarly, the county's taxpayer contribution to the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association fund is expected to increase from $805 million this year to $1.1 billion by 2011-12 as the fund has dropped in value since mid-2007.

But while county officials are confident they can afford the increased costs, Parks, the Los Angeles councilman, said the city's pension funds are "seriously in bad shape" and a rapidly growing proportion of the budget is going to pay for pensions and retiree health care costs.

In response, city officials are drafting a change in the city charter that would allow for the creation of a new, less generous pension plan for newly hired city workers.

Assistant City Administrative Officer Tom Coultas said the City Council could approve the new plan for civilian employees, but any changes for police officers and firefighters would require voter approval.

troy.anderson@dailynews.com, 213-974-8985


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

August 6, 2010

LA City Salary posting and Public Records Act request to Lakewood for same

The City of LA in response to the Bell scandal has posted a 547 page pdf document that is supposed to represent all the salaries of current "full time" employees. It does not list other perks, healthcare contributions or pension costs to taxpayers of course. It is also rather vague in that it does not state definitively if all the positions posted are currently filled or for how long they have been filled and paid at that rate. Nonetheless it is a start and is in line with the full disclosure other cities are making in light of the Bell scandal

So given this most recent developments above we are making a Public Records Act request as follows to the city of Lakewood:

LAAG is requesting all 2010 records that pertain to:

1. stipends or salaries of current city council members;

2. Health care contributions made by the city for current city council members;

3. public employee pension contributions made by the city for current city council members;

4. payments made by the city for perks (i.e. cellphone costs, car allowances, internet access, home offices, travel expenses and seminar fees for non state mandated trips, etc.) for current city council members;

5. stipends or salaries of current top 5 compensated employees in each city department;

6. Health care contributions made by the city for current top 5 compensated employees in each city department;

7. public employee pension contributions made by the city for current top 5 compensated employees in each city department;

8. payments made by the city for perks (i.e. cellphone costs, car allowances, internet access, home offices, travel expenses and seminar fees for non state mandated trips, etc.) for current top 5 compensated employees in each city department;

9. stipends or salaries of current top 5 compensated employees in city managers department;

10. Health care contributions made by the city for current top 5 compensated employees in city managers department;

11. public employee pension contributions made by the city for current top 5 compensated employees in city managers department;

12. payments made by the city for perks (i.e. cellphone costs, car allowances, internet access, home offices, travel expenses and seminar fees for non state mandated trips, etc.) for current top 5 compensated employees in city managers department;

13. All payments made to city attorney in last 12 months.

Please contact LAAG and make arrangement for us to view these materials. We will then make a decision on what materials to copy if any.

See the City's response here

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

City of Bell..the salaries are only the tip of the Iceberg (and the taxpayers are on the Titanic)

We read these two articles below and became even more outraged at the Bell scandal, which really is only just beginning from what we hear from multiple sources. Likely more cities will be drawn into this mess as they are exposed by the media frenzy fed by outraged taxpayers. CalPERS is totally out of control and is going to bankrupt the state. It already lost 40% of its value in the last few years and will be asking taxpayers to foot the bill for Wall Street's plundering. It needs to be reined in. These articles make that painfully clear. This is just the latest is a series of debacles at CalPERS. The inmates are in charge of the asylum now. You ask any public pension recipient about this mess and they just shrug their shoulders and laugh...and then say so what are you gonna do? There is no political will to get a grip on the public employee union problem. This current public taxpayer furor is short lived and is no match for the public employee union grip. This pension problem has been known publicly for at least 5 years (LAAG published stories about it in 2006) and yet nothing has been done. It will take a bankruptcy judge to deal with it. And that is where Calif. is headed.via campaign contributions and easy, direct access to politicians.


Marcia Fritz summed it up pretty well here and below. Its not the salaries that are the crime. Its the pensions. The salaries are but a mere tip of the iceberg.

CFFR’s president Marcia Fritz was on the CBS Evening News again last night. Here are the segment’s opening comments:

When the angry citizens of Bell, California, forced their outrageously overpaid city manager and police chief to resign, it may be the best thing that ever happened to the two. Consider the pension now due city manager Robert Rizzo.

“His lifetime pension will be roughly $30 million,” said Marcia Fritz of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.

And the pension due police chief Randy Adams.

“His lifetime pension will be more like $15 to $17 million,” said Fritz.

But it’s taxpayers in other cities who will be shelling out for these lavish pensions because in California every city or county an employee worked for has to pick up a portion of the pension. And the pension is based on the final year’s salary alone, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.

Our editorial comments to the article are below in bold.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/pension-fund-knew-about-high-bell-salaries-but-didnt-stop-them-memo-shows.html
Pension fund knew about high Bell salaries but didn't stop them, memo shows
August 3, 2010 | 6:39 pm

Officials at California’s state pension fund became aware four years ago of the exorbitant pay raises being given to administrators in the city of Bell and did nothing to stop them, according to an internal memo obtained by The Times.

The memo, which pension staff sent to board members today, shows that the California Public Employees’ Retirement System granted an exemption to its rules in 2006 so the Bell city manager could get a 47% pay hike and still receive a full pension on his salary.

The pension system learned of the salary hike during the course of an audit and informed Bell officials that the exemption would be needed.

“At the time, the city represented that the city manager was part of the top management groups or class, and all of the employees in this group or class received similarly large increases,” [LAAG: like we said before this was the scheme..he got more so we all get more too..that makes it ok if we all rip off the taxpayers as a group...] said the memo, written by Lori McGartland, head of the pensions fund’s employer services division. “Based upon those representations, CalPERS granted a one-time approval of the city manager’s 2005 increase.”

Just last week, CalPERS officials expressed surprise at the hefty increases for the then-city manager and two other top officials and ordered a freeze on their pension benefits pending completion of an investigation by California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown. [LAAG: how silly..none of them getting the pension yet so its like freezing something that is not going to happen how lame]

The three have resigned but not applied to receive retirement benefits from CalPERS.

CalPERS spokesman Brad Pacheco said such large pay hikes can be permissible under CalPERS rules as long as they are spread out among a group of employees, as was the case in Bell, as opposed to enriching a single official. [LAAG: like we said before this was the scheme..he got more so we all get more too..that makes it ok if we all rip off the taxpayers as a group...the more the merrier...]

“Our job is to enforce the statutes that govern the retirement law,” he said in a statement. “Pay and compensation is the decision of city and county elected officials.” [LAAG: well looks like we better change the law and fast..or that may be like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic]

But Pacheco said Bell officials may have violated other rules and regulations, and CalPERS is assisting law enforcement in their investigations. [LAAG: what!? you are just now looking at that? Also not your job? Great]

The memo states that CalPERS has expanded its internal probe beyond the city of Bell. “Staff is currently researching the pay of all CalPERS members paid in excess of $400,000 for appropriateness,” the memo states. [LAAG: What" How about in excess of 150k..oh wait that is all govt employees...]

-- Evan Halper and Marc Lifsher in Sacramento

latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bell-pensions-20100806,0,711701.story
latimes.com
Bell salaries raise more concerns about CalPERS
The state's embattled pension system did not act four years ago when it learned about the city's runaway salaries. The state attorney general and auditors express shock that nothing was done.

By Evan Halper and Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times

August 6, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento

The failure of the state's embattled pension system to take action after learning four years ago of Bell city officials' runaway salaries has put the fund under another unwelcome spotlight. [LAAG: I guess a good question would be what the top management at CalPERS makes and what their pensions will cost us..I guess they did not want to blow the whistle on this thing for fear that their own fat paychecks would be questioned. Once gain the you scratch my back Ill scratch yours buddy system. Here is a related CalPERS sob story for you.]

The state attorney general says he is shocked that nobody at the fund alerted law enforcement. Professional auditors are perplexed by the lack of follow-up that even board members at the California Public Employees' Retirement System are at a loss to explain.

During a routine audit in 2006, CalPERS learned that Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo had received a 47% salary increase the year before, driving his pay up to $442,000. CalPERS is supposed to stop pay spikes that can unduly enlarge retiree pensions, but officials signed off on Rizzo's raise because Bell's assistant city manager and City Council members were also getting enormous boosts. CalPERS took no further action. Rizzo's salary would eventually grow to nearly $800,000.

"A 47% increase in salary should have set off alarm bells," said California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, who is also the Democratic nominee for governor. "That kind of jump in pay is shocking and completely unacceptable. CalPERS should have told someone, and the attorney general's office would have been a good place to start." [LAAG: So Jerry why didn't you look into it yourself. Could you not hear any alarms? You are no newcomer to state pension ripoffs are you? Taxpayers have to deliver crimes to you on a silver platter? Is your AG office not the chief investigator and law enforcement officer of the state?...perfect timing though for your underfunded gubernatorial campaign. you cant buy press like this]

Documents released by CalPERS on Thursday show that the fund was also informed of a 42% raise for the assistant city manager and nearly 38% raise for City Council members. That brought council members' pay to $62,000 by 2005 for part-time jobs that in other small cities pay about $400 per month. The newly released records include Bell's explanation to CalPERS of why its officials were worthy of such salaries.

Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia told CalPERs in writing in October 2006 that the city manager's salary was hiked "to reflect his contributions to the city," which included helping Bell resolve a multimillion-dollar deficit. She said her own pay hike was "provided to reward her for her efforts and new responsibilities" related to a promotion the city had given her.

"It should also be noted that the City Council, also members of the Executive Management classification, were compensated accordingly for their contributions and efforts toward the City's dramatic financial recovery," Spaccia wrote.

CalPERS responded a week later that the city had provided sufficient documentation to authorize "a one-time compensation adjustment" for the officials. The fund conducted no follow-up audits, and Bell salaries continued to soar.

The pension officials' handling of the audit has invited more scrutiny for CalPERS at a time when it is already reeling from a corruption scandal. Brown's office earlier this year accused the fund's former chief executive and a former board member of being engaged in fraud. A civil suit is pending in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

CalPERS has ordered a freeze on the pension benefits of the three highest-paid former Bell officials pending the outcome of an investigation Brown has launched. None of those former officials have yet applied to receive their pensions.

Brad Pacheco, a CalPERS spokesman, said there were no follow-up audits because Bell wasn't scheduled to be looked at until about five years later. Asked why CalPERs did not alert authorities to the salary spikes, he said: "We're not part of that chain of command. It was the elected city officials who negotiated, saw and signed the salaries and who are accountable."

But some CalPERS board members say the fund mishandled the situation.

Among those critics is state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who says CalPERS staff never alerted the fund's board members to the audit's findings.

"There were no red flags raised for the board," said Lockyer spokesman Tom Dresslar. "That has to change."

He said Lockyer would propose rules requiring CalPERS staff to report to the board any audits that spot excessive salary hikes.

State Controller John Chiang, also a board member, said he would call on CalPERS to require that local governments "immediately notify the pension fund of any proposed salary increase that exceeds a reasonable level, along with a justification and the pay history for that position."

The controller's staff said "reasonable" might be 10% or less.

Political opponents of Lockyer and Chiang, both of whom are running for reelection in November, have sought to blame the two officials for CalPERS' handling of the audit. Lockyer and Chiang said the audit was complete, and CalPERs already had approved the salary hikes, before they joined the board.

Laura Chick, appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the chief auditor of California's federal stimulus dollars, expressed surprise that nobody at CalPERS flagged the Bell information.

"When you see unusual things and see things that raise eyebrows — and someone's eyebrows go up with a 47% salary increase.…The best thing is to go back and take another look."

Officials at the California Bureau of State Audits say that is their policy. Spokeswoman Margarita Fernandez said her agency routinely does follow-up audits after 60 days, six months and one year.

"If we don't follow up, we don't know if our auditees are taking our recommendations to heart," she said. "Most standards will call for some follow-up."

evan.halper@latimes.com

marc.lifsher@latimes.com


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

City manger compensation in LA County 2009

Well this is a bit of an eye popping chart but again hats off to the LA Times for compiling this info so quickly in light of the Bell scandal. Shame on you Press Telegram for not even trying to act like a real news paper. I guess all they can handle are High School sports scores. And shame on you local radio stations for just adding "mindless blabber" to the airwaves and adding nothing like this to the substance of the debate.

One again our good friend [long time Lakewood City manager] Howard Chambers comes out near the top (18th out of 77 cities reporting so far, including Bell) of the stack and shockingly is paid more ($2,000 that the Long Beach city manager Pat West who has many many more employees to manage than Howard. Even more than comparatively wealthy Cerritos. So why the disparity in pay even at such shocking high levels? Again the pay does not seem to be based on anything concrete. Its up to the city council. Anytime you have high paying jobs where salary is based on a group of people deciding it you usually have a situation where there is a "you scratch my back Ill scratch yours". In Howard's case its likely due to the fact he is one of the longest reining city managers in history (but that problem is for another column) In the case of CEO compensation it comes down to a "gentleman's club" mentality of people who consider themselves privileged and entitled to such high pay. The CEO "cons" the board of directors at the company to give him a high compensation package as other CEO's like him get X dollars at other companies. So it s a "race to the top" sorta speak not based on any hard and fast figures. Its based on "well Bob over at  X city gets Y salary so I should get that too" Also what most people fail to realize is that most boards are comprised of either former or current CEO's or top executes of other companies. So when the board gives a CEO a high compensation package they knew when back at their company what comes around goes around. Its a wink and nod scenario. Nothing is written down its just understood.That is likely what was going on in Bell. The Bell city manager allowed (or enabled) the council to pull this caper off so all had to get a share of the pie (the inflated property tax scheme dollars). You approve my salary Ill approve yours. All nice and tidy. And the voters were never the wiser.

Of course this monkey business is fine in the private sector as we are not forced to pay those salaries. In government however not only are we forced to pay these salaries but we are forced to pay them until the death of the employee. Chamber will likely retire well before us poor schleps in the private sector (10 years or more) and be paid benefit likely close to 95% of his current salary. For life. This of course includes lavish Cadillac heath care for life. What do you think that will cost you. You get the picture. Chambers will be laughing all the way to the back while you private sector fools work to 67 to fund his retirement. (Oh don't forget CalPERS, the big pension plan which will be paying the Bell pensions, lost like 40% of its value last year and is looking to you the taxpayer to make up for Wall Street's plunder of its risk investments) You private sector people ask "well why don't taxpayers back fill what I lost in my 401k for the last 3 years?" Well my friend its because you are not part of the elite ruling class of local government employees. Sorry..... lol

Pay in government is never truly, objectively performance based so that is why government city employees are so lacking in enthusiasm and not motivated. Why work hard to serve the taxpayer if you can get the same pay regardless? One thing that LAAG fears is that this LA Times chart will do is force managers and others, like Pat West, to rush into the Mayors office and say "How the hell is Howard Chambers getting paid more than me for running such a puny city like Lakewood?"  Oh I am sure we will hear all the same lavish praise as was heaped on  the Bell City manager. "Oh he is such a great guy and a rocket scientist to boot...he saved us from a Tsunami...blah blah blah" Yea right. So if you pay them $50,000 year less the city will somehow suffer a worse fate? Give me a break. None of this can really be justified. But its like the CEO's in many respects. The company goes down the toilet and the CEO leaves with a "golden parachute" for all his great work. (in the public sector the golden parachute is the pensions as in Bell's case) Its not pay for performance. Its pay based on privilege. And with taxpayer dollars scarce now, its time for that to end. Just like Wall St. is getting sacked now by the Fed's. Time to end the local government shakedown. And if you think LAAG is crazy read this.

Oh one last funny observation. The LA Times article gives links to contact the city managers via email directly. Most complied. Howard of course does not want to list his email like other city mangers. Similar to the Lakewood city council who prefers to not place that info on the website as it fosters direct contact by voters (an issue LAAG raised long ago). Well here it is for those of you that want it:  HChamber@lakewoodcity.org  When you email him ask him what all his deputies and assistants make and let LAAG know what kind of a response you get. lol.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

August 3, 2010

State Controller Takes Quick Action to Prevent Another City of Bell Debacle

We applaud State Controller John Chiang's move as reported in the LA Times below (as well as the Controllers own press release below) as it gets around legislative wrangling, delay and various city groups lobbyists that are tying to let this Bell furor calm down so they can water down the financial reporting rules and go back into hiding like before. We say it again and again and again. Secrecy breeds mistrust and ultimately corruption as was the case in Bell. Its not the impropriety but the "appearance of impropriety" that has most residents upset. Its taxpayers money plain and simple. Their needs to be transparency and accountability. Quite frankly we are afraid even Controller Chiang's rules will get watered down. They also will not likely cover the pension information these fat cats will be raking in from cities other than the one they retire from or all the "side perks" not really on the books like lifetime "Cadillac" health insurance, outrageous cars allowances, free cell phones and blackberries all used for personal business. But its a start.

Controller Requires Cities, Counties to Report Salaries of Government Officials
PR10:27
8/3/2010
Contact: Jacob Roper
916-445-2636

SACRAMENTO – State Controller John Chiang today announced new reporting requirements for all California cities and counties, directing them to clearly identify elected officials and public employees’ compensation. The information will be posted on the Controller’s website, starting in November.

“The absence of transparency is a breeding ground for waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” said Chiang. “A single website with accessible information will make sure that excessive pay is no longer able to escape public scrutiny and accountability.”

The new reporting requirements come after the City of Bell reportedly spent $1.6 million annually on just three city employees, and nearly $100,000 for each part-time City Councilmember. At the request of the City of Bell’s Interim City Administrative Officer, the Controller ordered an audit of Bell’s finances last week.

Under current law, local governments are required to transmit summary information about their revenues and expenditures to the State Controller’s office. Payroll information is included in the total amount listed for each category of program, such as public protection, health and welfare, and governing body. The data is compiled and used to produce annual reports for the Legislature. The Controller’s new rules require cities and counties to provide the salaries for each classification of elected official, such as mayor and supervisor, and public employee, such as city manager and county administrator.

City and counties generally are required to provide the information to the Controller by mid-October of each year. The Controller’s website will be updated annually to reflect the most recent data received. Local governments who fail to report timely could face a penalty of up to $5,000.

###

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/in-wake-of-bell-scandal-state-controller-to-require-that-cities-disclose-pay-in-state-financial-repo.html
In wake of Bell salary scandal, state controller to require that cities disclose pay in financial reports
August 3, 2010 | 12:58 pm

In the continuing fallout from the Bell salary scandal, State Controller John Chiang announced Tuesday that he would overhaul city financial reporting requirements to require that salary information for elected officials and other employees be clearly stated. The information would be posted on his office’s website beginning in November, he said.

The action comes as a Times analysis found that Bell’s reports to the state in recent years have shown that costs for its legislative activities, including City Council salaries, declined sharply since 2005, at a time when overall council compensation rose to nearly $100,000 for part-time work.

“The absence of transparency is a breeding ground for waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” said Chiang, who is running for re-election. “A single website with accessible information will make sure that excessive pay is no longer able to escape public scrutiny and accountability.”

The new requirements follow reports by The Times that Bell spent $1.6 million annually on just three city employees, including nearly $800,000 on the city manager. Council members drew pay for serving on multiple city panels, some of which met at the same time or for as little a minute.

Under current law, local governments must transmit summary information about their revenues and expenditures to the state, which goes into reports the controller prepares for the Legislature and posts on the internet. Payroll information is included in total amounts spent on various government functions, such as police, but not itemized separately.

The new rules, which Chiang said would be issued in the coming weeks, will require compensation figures for each category of local official, including council members and city managers.

“We have to make sure people aren’t moving categories or hiding what they are being paid,” Chiang said in an interview. “We want to put it in a format people understand.” Bell reported a total of just $34,483 in spending for its legislative activity in 2007-08, far below the total of council compensation alone.

The apparent disparity is "obviously a question that needs an answer," Chiang said.

-- Rich Connell


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

August 2, 2010

Property Tax Rate Comparisons in LA County Cities 2010

This was a very interesting chart from the LA Times this week. (you can sort using column headers at the top) What was most interesting was that the cities with wealthier residents (and likely bigger more expensive homes) had lower property tax rates than poorer cities. The reason the LA Times likely ran this story was there seemed to be a correlation between Bell's property tax rate and its exorbitant salaries of elected and appointed officials. Bell of course is ranked no. 2, second most costly rate in the city. (City of Industry may be the hot seat next as its ranked no. 1!!) But what LAAG found more interesting was that Lakewood was ranked 47th out of all 88 incorporated cities in Los Angeles county. By no means anywhere near the lowest. Very interesting to note that city of Bellflower is ranked 88th (the cheapest in the county) and city of Cerritos is 85th out of 88 incorporated cities in the county. City of Artesia is 84th. All three have much lower tax rates than Lakewood but yet very similar cities in terms of size and demographics. All also have LASD coverage and contracts. Why the difference? Very interesting indeed. Don't count on Lakewood city hall to illuminate any of this mystery for you in any detail if at all. While most cities are responding to the Bell debacle with publications of salary and other data on their website, Lakewood remains totally silent (as of this posting), hoping that all the questions and news focus on "questionable" city practices just dies away....before anyone starts digging around and asking hard questions.

Of course the Times story notes that this chart only includes figures off the county property tax bill which includes all those "nice" little add ons ("voted indebtedness" and "direct assessments") which are not based on lot size or Proposition 13 reductions. In Lakewood these can be over 500.00 per year per parcel/bill as they are not affected by Proposition 13 limits or lot size or property value. How nice!

It would be very interesting to see a comparison of all local utility costs such as water, trash, sewer, fire and police costs. Hopefully we will see something like this in the future from the Times, along with a comparison of all city salaries and personnel costs by city. For example it would be nice to see what the total payroll costs are in Bellflower as related to Lakewood, averaged out per resident.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

July 29, 2010

The Real lessons from the City of Bell Debacle

We Don't disagree with the points raised by the LA Times editorial of 7/23 below however there is a broader message: Never trust local politicians (or any for that matter) and always keep your ear to the ground. As Ronald Regan famously said" "Trust but verify" (see more quotes like this on our LAAG quote page) We completely applaud the more recent (7/29) LA times post below and for years have tried to get Sacramento to force local governments to open up their records. The biggest problem with local [city/county] government is that there really are no watchdogs or effective media scrutiny like there is at the state and federal level. No one thinks any fraud or corruption can happen at sleepy little cities yet this is the easiest place to pull it off as no one is even looking. Hell they don't even know where to look or if they did that the city would post anything on line answering their inquiries. Public records requests are useless as the law has no teeth and too many exceptions. All you get is a bureaucratic run around and no one bothers. The scary part is that no one looked at was how it was precisely that the LA Times was able to break this story. It was insider info apparently from the police. Great. Took a city feud to get the info out. See if you can find any mention of the Bell issues on the Lakewood website. Nope not one. See any salaries posted of ANY current city official or elected official? Nope. (a search for "salaries" or "pensions" on the Lakewood website did not pull up one document) Good luck on that. Can Lakewood become the next Bell? Sure. Why not? All cities have the potential to become Bell. Its just takes voters asleep at the switch and the right combination of insiders to get the guts to try to pull it off. Bell had that deadly combination. This website was created out of a frustration with the lack of transparency and action by local government. Nothing has changed. It wont until voters demand it change.

We applaud this latest column from Terry Francke (Voice of OC's open government consultant and general counsel for Californians Aware) as it once again just echoes LAAG's foregoing comments and emphasizes the problems with the current system (and weaknesses in the Brown Act) that allows any city to become Bell with the right [wrong] people in charge.

This ethics outline might be a good thing for the city council to post up in council chambers just to make sure they don't "forget" what they are supposed to do. And LAAG reminds "public servants" all the time, its not that anything "unethical" is actually going on, its that secrecy gives rise to "an appearance of impropriety". Taxpayers have a right to be suspicious, especially now with bell and all the other public pension debacles (back room shady deals) coming to light.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/schwarzenegger-city-salaries-should-be-placed-online-to-avoid-another-bell-scandal.html
Schwarzenegger: City salaries should be placed online to avoid another Bell scandal
July 29, 2010 | 11:29 am

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday that if local governments have “nothing to hide” then they should post the salaries of top officials online, citing the growing scandal in Bell as an example of the need for disclosure.

City managers from across California are gathering in Sacramento today to discuss damage control.

The Legislature is also considering several responses to the high salaries in Bell, up to nearly $800,000 for former City Manager Robert Rizzo.

“The people should start asking themselves what are their city officials, what are their county officials getting paid,” Schwarzenegger told a group of business leaders at round-table discussion in San Diego.

Schwarzenegger said outrage over the scandal in Bell has the public calling cities and counties demanding to know what officials are being paid.

But local governments, he said, should go one step further and “put your information on a website so people don’t even have to call.”

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento

latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-bell-20100724,0,1549953.story
latimes.com
Editorial
The lessons of Bell
There's a lesson for all citizens in how the outrageous salaries for Bell city officials came about.

4:06 PM PDT, July 23, 2010
Advertisement

Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo has announced his resignation from his $787,637 a year job, as have police Chief Randy Adams ($457,000) and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia ($376,288), and we wish all three a not-so-fond farewell. Even if they performed their work brilliantly, and even if they believed in their hearts that no one earning less could properly serve their problem-wracked city, their pay was shocking, and so utterly out of step with their counterparts in neighboring municipalities and their own struggling residents as to be inherently exploitive.

The public became aware of the disproportionate salaries earlier this month in reports by Times staff writers Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives. Now Bell residents are angry and want to know why most members of their part-time City Council, which approved the contracts for the three, get an outrageous $100,000 a year when nearby council members get 10% of that, or even less. Prosecutors already are delving into that question, and they will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges.

It would be comforting to be able to conclude that the problems in Bell — or in nearby cities such as Maywood, South Gate, Lynwood, Vernon and Compton, which have all been plagued by exploitation, mismanagement and corruption — originated with a handful of municipal officials who forgot their moral and fiduciary duties to the people they were supposed to serve. Or, perhaps, that the people of those cities brought these problems on themselves by electing such leaders, or by staying away from the polls and allowing themselves to be suckered.

Although there's certainly some truth to both of those explanations, the full reality is far more complex and troubling. Bell and its neighboring communities were built on factory industries and on waves of immigrants from the American Midwest who built their cities' civic institutions. They stayed, and many of their children stayed, but their grandchildren left when the factories closed. Their places are being taken by new waves of immigrants, mostly from Mexico, who are still in the process of rebuilding community and civic institutions — but without the wealth that industry once pumped into middle-class pockets and city treasuries. Unlike the earlier waves of immigrants, many of the newest generation lack U.S. citizenship and can't vote. Those who came here illegally live and work in fear of the law and tend to keep their heads low rather than fight exploitation at the hands of those who win power.

But it's not even that simple. In 2005, soon after the governor signed a bill to cap salaries of city council members in general law cities such as Bell, public officials there called a special election to ask voters to make Bell a charter city. Only 336 voters said "yes," but it was enough. Ballot measures, drafted for purposes not immediately clear in their wording, are unfortunately not phenomena limited to small cities. That's a lesson, in this election year, for every California voter.


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

April 19, 2010

L.A. County budget shortfall at more that $500 million

Read the headline below closely..."layoffs POSSIBLE". What private employer in the US would have a $500 million loss and not lay off people immediately? I guess the County administrators flunked math as the total below is like 168 million. So what about the rest? Also note that 1/4 of the total is cuts from LASD, where we all know most of the cost and the fat is located. How does eliminating a vacant deputy postion save us money? Thats fake. Also how much overtime is being cut. Very "broad" picture being painted below. We need to see the details in the story below as we call know the deveil is in the details. Also when these cuts actually happen lets us know. We all hear about "proposed" cuts "in the news" that never really happen. Also lets take a  look at govt. employye job losses vs private sector job losses. There is no comparison. It must be like 700 private sector job losses for every one public secor job loss. Ill bet not one person that was a full time govt. employee in CA before 2004 has lost their job due to budget cuts. I would love to see just one real job cut, that actually really ocurred and by which we stopped paying tax dollars for that position. I challenge any reader to show us some evidence that this has occurred and that a real measurable "budget saving" resulted. I think this is all "press release" generated headlines to generate sympathy were none is needed or to drum up votes for the coming ballot proposition(s) in November. Surely when they run the ads in November for the "Local Taxpayer, Public Safety and Transportation Protection Act" (which they hope to qualify for the November 2010 statewide ballot) they will run these headlines of "proposed" cuts and tell us how the sky is falling.

L.A. County budget shortfall at more that $500 million, layoffs possible
April 19, 2010 | 2:09 pm

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a5267e70970b-800wi

Los Angeles County Chief Executive William T Fujioka said Monday that he is grappling with a $510.5 million budget shortfall and may need to lay off about 100 workers to help close the gap, even with negotiations underway with labor leaders that could yield compromises.

“This will be the worst year,” Fujioka said at a news conference today, predicting that the economic downturn will continue to ease and the pressure on the county will be far less in coming years.

In addition to possible job cuts, Fujioka's proposal to close the budget gap includes shortened library hours, reduced overtime for sheriff’s employees and the elimination of more than 1,000 vacant positions across the county.

Fujioka also cautioned that the cuts might grow significantly worse in the coming weeks because of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed $1.5 billion cut to county funding. That situation remains fluid, however, and no state cuts are included in Fujioka’s plan so far.

Currently, his budget proposal for the coming fiscal year totals $22.721 billion, a decrease of $885 million from the current budget. The proposed budget is scheduled to be presented to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday, allowing for public hearings to begin May 12.

Among proposed curtailments:


* Sheriff: $128 million in cuts, elimination of 214 budgeted positions by downsizing the Pitchess Detention Center, deletion of 300 vacant deputy positions, reduction in overtime budget.

* Assessor: $7.9 million reduction and elimination of 22 positions, affecting appraisals, information technology projects and other services.

* Public Health: $7.9 million reduction and elimination of 81 positions

* Public Social Services: $7.4 million and elimination of 383 positions.

* Public Library: $4.8 million reduction and elimination of 9 positions, reducing service hours at selected libraries and elimination of the adult literacy program.

* Public Defender: $4.5 million reduction and elimination of 18 positions.

* Children and Family Services: $4.4 million reduction in programmatic areas.

* District Attorney: $3.6 million reduction and elimination of 25 positions.

-- Garrett Therolf at the L.A. County Hall of Administration

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

click here to receive LAAG posts by email

October 30, 2009

Trick or Treat from the Lakewood Sheriff's Department

The Press telegram reports that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's station in Lakewood is hosting a "Haunted Jail," complete with spooky costumed characters (does this mean deputies?), food and games (do tasers count as games?). The Lakewood Station moved all its prisoners to Cerritos for the event. Odd that the LASD did not send this press release to LAAG.

So are we to believe that no work hours (i.e. tax dollars) were "lost" on all this? Right. Trick or Treat? I think the taxpayers are being tricked. This is the highest and best use of a $20 million dollar new station? I mean we know the LASD Lakewood station does nothing useful for $10 million a year (except try to look busy) but lets not advertise the fact by turning the jail into something out of The Andy Griffith Show on one of the busiest nights out of the year. You want to read about something really scary that really happened in the Lakewood jail read this. Now that real scary episode will be a real "treat" for taxpayers. We'll see if the LASD has any tricks up its sleeve on that one. Likely not. Just some tax dollars for that "trick or treater".

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

click here to receive LAAG posts by email

July 18, 2009

Water costs to increase 109% in Lakewood

Just as LAAG was getting ready to write an article on what a poor job cities like Lakewood are doing on water conservation and recycling (other than lip service), this story below pops up and grabbed our attention. Bottom line: water fees are going up 109% due to spending on pork projects that do not appear to be directly related to water delivery to residents in Lakewood. Whatever happened to all the federal stimulus money? Again this is yet another sad example of how government agencies (especially little known, little watched ones like the Central Basin Municipal Water District) just do not care what the taxpayers think about spending. They know that most of what they do is carried out in utter obscurity and hidden from ratepayers, and unless things really get out of hand, most increases are gradual, slow or hidden in "obscure fees" and unnoticed by most ratepayers (like the frog in the boiling water; turn up the heat (or costs) slow and he wont jump out before he cooks).

Charges for water need to be based more on rational formulas than simply raw usage. Charge based on lot size and number of occupants. Once they go above the allotted threshold fees go way up. Then perhaps we would see all those silly lawns in Lakewood replaced with drought resistant plants. People in LA county fail to realize that we live in a desert and its going to get worse before it gets better. We are now in year round drought mode. Rain in LA country means very little as the vast majority of it just goes out to the ocean (after it picks up a bunch of toxic chemicals after coursing over miles of driveways, streets, gutters and storm water drains. Some non run off waste water is treated then released to the ocean. Only a very small percentage of water in LA County is reclaimed and used to water lawns. Not only is this a waste of money and energy but also something that is even more precious: water.

Of course the irony here (as usual) is that this "fee" increase has nothing to do with the scarcity or usage of water (or even the cost of water) but rather poor judgment by bureaucrats and pet projects of dubious value. Still this cost increase may have the "beneficial" effect of making people cut back on water use and starting to be come more rational in terms of their landscaping choices.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-water-rates18-2009jul18,0,756615.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Doubling of water fees in largely blue-collar L.A. County area stirs uproar
The Central Basin Municipal Water District says the money will go to projects that are cheaper to build during a recession. But client cities and agencies question the expenditures.
By Louis Sahagun

[bold text from LAAG editor]

July 18, 2009

A water district's decision to double water fees has sparked outcry from largely working-class and impoverished areas of Los Angeles County.

The Central Basin Municipal Water District unanimously approved the charges June 25, despite objections from cities including Compton, Lynwood, Santa Fe Springs, Huntington Park, Bellflower, Norwalk and Lakewood.

The fee hikes will be phased in, from $44 per acre-foot of water to $62 per acre-foot on July 1, then to $72 per acre-foot on Jan. 1, 2010, and $92 on July 1, 2010.

An average household in Lakewood, for example, can expect to pay about $88 more a year on water services, officials said.

Officials in Norwalk, which buys 80% of its water from the district, say the city's water fund cannot support the increase without passing the cost on to customers.

"This issue is not dead yet," said Adriana Figueroa, administrative services manager for Norwalk. "We have lots of questions and we want answers -- we deserve them."

Cities and local water agencies have begun questioning the board's spending on projects, including a 12-mile-long pipeline for recycled water, and contributions it made toward building an "interpretive center" in the Whittier Narrows wildlife sanctuary.

Art Aguilar, district manager for the central board, sympathized with customers, but insisted that "the money we get will be spent wisely" on projects that he said are more efficient to build during a recession, when costs have fallen.

"I do not disagree with their anger and being upset," Aguilar said. "If we didn't have to do it right now we wouldn't. . . . It's just one of those things. We have a bad economy, which means that the cost of building the recycled-water pipeline will be less than it would in a strong economy. So we'll save money in the long run." The pipeline project "was initially projected to cost about a total $110 million," he said. "We believe it will come in at less than that."

But Jeanne-Marie Bruno, general manager of Downey-based Park Water Co., a district customer that serves portions of Compton, Norwalk and Artesia, was not convinced that her customers would benefit directly from that project.

"We have lots of questions," she said. "Does this project make sense for our region? Are the right customers being billed for this project?"

Robb Whitaker, general manager of the Water Replenishment District of Southern California, argued that this was not the time to raise fees. The agency manages groundwater for nearly 4 million residents of southern Los Angeles County, according to its website.

"In the worst of times," he said in a letter to Aguilar, "when our respective public and private customers are laying off employees and implementing mandatory furloughs and generally slashing their budgets, such an increase is unimaginable."

Some environmentalists took issue with the district's donation of $80,000 last year in support of a controversial proposal to build a $30-million interpretive center and parking lot in the Whittier Narrows wildlife sanctuary.

Aguilar said the district wants to use the proposed center for new student programs designed to enhance understanding of the San Gabriel River watershed and its water districts. He pointed out that as part of an effort to cut costs, the district did not donate money this year to the San Gabriel River Discovery Center.

Jim Odling, chairman of the Friends of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area, which opposes the center, said the environmental impact report on the project "indicates the real purpose of the center will be to serve as a fancy meeting place for water and government agencies."

"In other words," he said, "while the district claims to be so desperate for money it is raising surcharge fees, it managed to come up with $80,000 to help build an interpretive center nine times bigger than the one that exists there now."

The Commerce-based district supplies water to 2 million residents in 24 cities and unincorporated county areas. Each year, it provides about 60,000 acre-feet of imported water to its 227-square-mile service area.

The district "is doing everything it can to provide information," Aguilar said. "If we need to sit down and have more meetings and outreach, we will do that too." (LAAG editor: yes we can have the meeting at the new interpretive center!)

"I understand that a 109% increase sounds horrible to people," he added. "But in the long run it will allow us to put together projects that will allow us to serve them better in the future."

louis.sahagun@latimes.com


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

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January 16, 2009

Pain at the Mall likely to last all of 2009

As can be seen from the article blow these are going to be trying times for shopping malls. 2009 will be the true test of just how strong your towns mall is and it will depend greatly on which mall has the highest percentage of stores that go bankrupt. MACERICH CO (NYSE: MAC) the owner of Cerritos, Lakewood, and Stonewood (Downey) malls was trading at over $75.00 a share in May 2008 and now hovers around $15.00 a share, up from $10.00 in the 2008 Christmas season. The problem for Lakewood is that they already have loads of cheaper retail space for lease in other parts of the city OUTSIDE the mall. This has been the case for a number of years as the city has focused all its muscle on the mall, abandoning other areas of the city. Now it will take a Herculean effort just to keep the mall fully leased, especially with Long Beach competing for what's left of surviving retailers. Forget about leasing the other areas of the city (which may become retail wastelands). And "economists" say no recovery until 2010. It already feels like March (with so much bad news coming so fast) and its still January. This is going to be a long and painful year. Oh and don't forget about California's budget (yes the MSM "main stream media" reminds you about it now and again). I am officially designating the California Legislature a "Weapon of Mass Destruction" (WMD) This WMD is on Washingtons radar..this time arround. If the budget mess is not fixed by February 1, 2009, the Governator and all legislators should be fired. Then we hold a special election March 1, and no one that has run or been in office up there in Sacramento in the last 5 years should be eligible to run. I'll bet we would get some results then. Bush has his legacy. What will Arnie's be?

Foreclosure at the Mall
The Recession's Latest Victim Might Just Be That Shopping Center Down the Road
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
ABC NEWS Business Unit
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6544358

Dec. 30, 2008—

Forget those 50-percent-off signs. This winter you are likely to see a new sign at your local mall: "Going Out of Business." And that means big trouble for mall owners already struggling to survive.

The nation's shopping center owners are facing a recessionary double whammy: consumers who are spending less and real estate investors who are holding back money used to finance their operations.

And some analysts say that, in the next two months, those forces will collide, sending some mall owners into bankruptcy. Don't expect your local mall to necessarily close its doors -- although some of the 3,500 across the country might -- but it could very likely be owned by somebody else by the spring.

"They have significant problems by and large," said George Whalin, president and CEO of Retail Management Consultants.

In just six to eight weeks, Whalin said, "there are going to be a significant number of retailers that will go bankrupt. There's no doubt about that. ... We've just never seen anything as bad as this."

Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers, said the industry has "really been battered by every part" of this recession.

First, housing stores saw problems. Then apparel. Now every store, including the once-immune luxury retailer.

"Clearly, there are lots of problems in the retail industry and they range from the weakness in consumer demand to the debt issues that some companies are facing," Niemira said.

Back in August, Niemira predicted that sales would grow as much as 1.7 percent this holiday season. Now, he estimates a decline of 1.5 percent to 2 percent. Sales during the final week of shopping were down 1.8 percent from last year. That makes this year "the weakest holiday season since at least 1970," Niemira said in a statement this morning.

He said stores are doing everything from slashing prices to laying off workers to try to stay afloat. Retailers, he said, account for 9 percent of the nation's jobs but represent 25 percent of the recent employment declines.

Stores Go Bankrupt

Big chains, including Linens 'N Things, Circuit City, Whitehall Jewelers, Mervyn's and Steve and Barry's have already filed for bankruptcy. Other big retailers, including Talbots, Fashion Bug, Ann Taylor, J. Crew and Liz Claiborne have either announced store closings or scaled back or delayed expansion plans.

Retailers may close 73,000 stores in the first half of 2009, according to the shopping center council.

None of that is good news for mall owners who rely on those retailers for rent, which they use to pay off the massive loans to build or buy the malls in the first place. As mall owners try to refinance existing loans, they find themselves struggling to get investors to give them money and -- like many homeowners -- they find their real estate is worth less than it was just a few years ago.

Whalin said the first major blow to malls came in August 2005, when Macy's bought out rival May Department Stores. In one giant move, retailers, such as Marshall Field's, Filene's, Hecht's, Foley's, Robinsons-May and Kaufmann's all fell under the Macy's flag.

A mall that once had Macy's anchoring one end and Filene's at the other suddenly had two Macy's. The company quickly moved to close its redundant stores and the malls lost large tenants.

"The value of their real estate has diminished for a variety of reasons, certainly not the least of which was Macy's gobbling all the regional department stores and essentially closing some of those stores and struggling with others," Whalin said.

But it's not just big chains that are shutting their doors as we fall deeper into a recession.

At the beginning of 2006, just 7.3 percent of retail spaces -- from malls to strip malls to stand-alone stores -- were empty, according to the National Association of Realtors. That figure now hovers just below 10 percent and for next year, the group forecasts a 12.4 percent vacancy rate.

And after a disappointing Christmas shopping season, those numbers could climb ever higher.

The amount of money spent at the nation's retailers from Nov. 1 through Christmas Eve was down 5.5 percent to 8 percent compared with last year, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, which tracks retail sales for all forms of payment, including check, cash and credit card.

Falling Rents

Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said that in the coming year he anticipates a 7 percent drop in retail rents as a larger supply of vacant stores comes on the market.

"The property owners will be competing, trying to draw the tenants by offering much lower rents," Yun said. "A combination of a rising vacancy rate and falling rents will naturally mean that the property prices will be coming down."

Some big chains are already asking for leases to be renegotiated and others are likely to when their leases expire in the next year or two, Whalin added.

But that's only half of the picture.

Most malls are owned through large real estate investment trusts or REITs. The two biggest are Simon Property Group and General Growth Properties.

These real estate companies -- and especially General Growth -- are now being hurt by the credit crunch.

In 2004, General Growth spent $12 billion to acquire mall owner Rouse. The deal including assuming $5.4 billion in Rouse debt.

To pay for the deal, the company borrowed heavily. But then the credit markets froze and now General Growth -- which owns more than 200 shopping centers -- has roughly $27 billion in debt and no way to refinance.

Just last week, the company got a reprieve on a debt-payment deadline. The forbearance gives it a bit of breathing room and keeps the company out of bankruptcy, for now. Many analysts are watching Jan. 30 and Feb. 12 -- dates when the company might be forced to make two large debt payments.

Mounting Debt

To help raise cash, General Growth -- the country's second largest mall owner -- announced in October it would try to sell its retail properties in Las Vegas, which include the Fashion Show Mall, Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian, and the Shoppes at the Palazzo.

"I don't see that they're through the woods here yet," Whalin said. "A lot of smaller mall companies are suffering in the same way."

Niemira said General Growth is "the poster child" for the credit troubles facing the industry.

"Those owners that took on too much debt have ultimately paid the price. At this point it's not clear how that will all play out," he said, noting that "the stock prices of some of these firms have really taken a huge hit."

Just a year ago, shares of General Growth traded at 38.73. They closed Monday at 1.21 -- that's a fall of nearly 97 percent this year.

But don't expect the malls themselves to close. Both Whalin and Niemira said the properties are profitable; it's just that some mall owners have too much debt to ride out the recession.

"The regional mall is here to stay as part of the retail environment," Whalin said. "It isn't going to go away anytime soon."

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

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December 10, 2008

Sheriff Baca road trip to the Inauguration

I really hope Sheriff Baca is kidding. Really the best thing we could have happen is Obama appointing a new Sheriff for LA County that actually has some intelligence. When you read this story below think to yourself..how is it that you (not me) voted for this guy. Does he not think anything through? I suppose next he will offer to have then all drive new hybrid LASD cars (at taxpayer expense) and five days salary (with rolling road closures for them of course) just like the recent PR stunt by the auto execs driving to Washington DC. Lets call this for what it is Baca. The 347 deputies won the lottery in the Dept. for going back to get front row seats at the hottest event this year. And where will they sleep? All the hotels are booked. I suppose we can rent 5 floors at the Ritz Carlton DC at taxpayer expense. And I am sure Baca himself will not miss it! Cant wait to see that expense report. Then I read things like this and realize this whole scheme probably seems rational to Baca.

L.A. County sheriff's plan to send deputies to inauguration is questioned
Baca wants to fly 347 deputies back east. But some officials wonder if the cost will be too high and if the deputies aren't needed in the county.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Richard Winton

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sheriff10-2008dec10,0,100128,full.story
From the Los Angeles Times

December 10, 2008

The request was straightforward, even flattering. Send a few hundred Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies across the country next month to assist Washington, D.C., police at the presidential inauguration.

It's the price tag of $1.6 million -- with as much as $1 million coming from the county -- that has given some top officials indigestion.

"We're not in a position to police other cities, as worthy as this is," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said Tuesday. "This is not an emergency. This is not Katrina, this is not a hurricane or a natural disaster."

Sheriff Lee Baca, in a letter dated Tuesday, asked county supervisors to approve plans to charter a plane and fly 347 deputies to Washington, where they would work for four days. A decision was postponed until next week's meeting.

At issue is who will ultimately pay for what.

Everyone agrees that Washington police would pick up the tab for $533,000 in airfare and $97,000 in per diem expenses, but that amount accounts for only a portion of the costs.

County officials estimate that they would be on the hook for another $905,000 in salary and benefits. In addition, there is $81,000 in needed "cold weather gear" including jackets, gloves, hats and "turtleneck dickies," at a cost of $232 per deputy. (LAAG: I guess we have to buy them little mittens too as they dont have any. give me a break)

Baca said Tuesday that concern about repayment is "much ado about nothing." (LAAG: yes as anything taxpayers say is trivial)

"The reality is the county will pay nothing for this," he said, adding that the questions raised about costs are coming as he is still in negotiations with Washington police and the inaugural committee.

Baca said that providing mutual aid was good policy, adding that earthquake-prone Los Angeles may one day need the favor returned.

Baca's spokesman, Steve Whitmore, said Tuesday that although D.C. police requested several hundred deputies, so far they have offered to reimburse the salaries of only 40.

The Sheriff's Department agreed to foot the cost of winter weather gear because it will be used again by deputies working in colder parts of the county, Whitmore said. (LAAG: so they dont have their own jackets...never had cold weather in CA efore this)

"What the sheriff has said is the department is willing to provide the deputies requested, but they will have to pay all of their salaries," Whitmore said. Some 64 deputies worked the 2004 Bush inaugural, with the costs reimbursed by the Washington, D.C., Metro Police Department.

Even if the entire cost of the trip is covered, Yaroslavsky and Supervisor Michael Antonovich said they would have trouble approving it.

"The sheriff's first responsibility is to the citizens of Los Angeles County, to ensure that we have adequate protection at any time of day," Antonovich said. "If they need additional personnel on the East Coast, then they need to utilize personnel on the East Coast." (LAAG: Uh yeah..brilliant..lets not fly 3500 miles to help when people 50 miles away can help..)

Another concern -- despite assurances from the sheriff that those sent would come from "non-emergency" positions -- is whether the county would incur additional overtime costs for deputies needed to backfill for those in Washington. (LAAG: Since when does the Sheriff Dept. worry about overtime...how do you expect Deputies to buy those new boats they need)

"We have a fiscal crisis on our hands and an even worse one looming on the horizon. Our job is to husband our resources," Yaroslavsky said.

It was unclear Tuesday whether there were enough votes on the five-member board to permit the plan to go forward when it comes up again next week.

Supervisor Gloria Molina declined to comment on the matter through a spokeswoman. A spokesman for Supervisor Don Knabe said his boss was undecided, as was Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.

"There are clearly pros and cons to doing so," Ridley-Thomas said. "The question in the final analysis is whether the sheriff and other proponents can persuade the board that this is a defensible thing to do."

The call for help went out weeks ago, said Traci Hughes of the Washington, D.C., police.

"We are expecting historical crowd numbers and there are numerous [inaugural] ball sites" that have to be secured, Hughes said. "Keep in mind too that we have to ensure that people can get in and out of the city. So there will be officers manning traffic posts and just a variety of things."

As of Tuesday, 96 law enforcement agencies had promised to supply 4,000 additional staff for the inauguration, effectively doubling the ranks of the Washington, D.C., department, Hughes said. Several West Coast law enforcement agencies were approached, she said. Hughes declined to say which ones, citing security concerns. (LAAG: I think the cat is out of the bag as we know how many LASD officers want to go; the crooks in LA will take notice and have one hell of an inauguartion party back in LA)

Los Angeles Police Department officials said Tuesday that they had not received any requests to provide officers for the inauguration. (LAAG: perhaps Baca asked DC to ask him for 347 officers!)

The department, however, does plan to send a small team of tactical commanders to the inauguration to observe crowd control.

Steve Remige, president of the Assn. of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, which represents rank-and-file deputies, said Tuesday that his members "are flattered that the inaugural committee believes Los Angeles deputy sheriffs are needed to provide security for the inauguration." (LAAG: of course the union wants to go. How silly)

But, he said, given the state's growing budget deficit, what could amount to a $1-million gift from the county seemed impractical at best.

"It might be the season for giving," Remige said, "but this is over the top."

Hennessy-Fiske and Winton are Times staff writers.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

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