Originally posted at www.calpensions.com
A superior court judge this month upheld a voter-approved initiative giving lower pensions to all city of Menlo Park new hires except police, the first court ruling as unions challenge similar measures in Pacific Grove and Bakersfield.

Voters in the three cities approved cost-cutting pension reforms in November 2010 that bypassed bargaining with unions. California is one of only several states where public employee retirement benefits are set by labor negotiations.

The measures in the small cities of Menlo Park and Pacific Grove, with relatively wealthy and well-educated residents, were overwhelmingly approved by more than 70 percent of voters.

In the much larger and more diverse Bakersfield, a measure that sharply cuts the pensions of new police and firefighters, not other non-sworn city employees, was approved by 56 percent of voters.

Simi Valley isn’t closing the door on outsourcing its libraries, however it has decided to allow the county to continue operating them for a year. It’s a choice that not many municipalities have had to make in the past, but AB 438 forced Simi’s hand and they sought bids for their library services.

AB 438 was designed to impede the ability of cities to withdraw from county-operated library systems. Once the law took effect, any city would have been required to demonstrate a clear and decisive cost savings. As a result, Simi Valley preemptively withdrew from the county system, but offered the county the opportunity to bid for the work.

The RFP went out, but the process was interrupted by a lawsuit saying the city broke the law in its withdrawal from the system. That lawsuit has protracted the process to such a point that the city would not be able to fully implement a new operator for the library system by July 1. Now, the city has decided to pursue a one-year deal with the county and reissue the RFP when the lawsuit is resolved.

Former Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed may not be charged with a crime, but there can be no denying the vandalism-like damage he did to the city’s financial state over his 28 years in office. During he term, he amassed a total of $459.2 million in debts.

That legacy of spending impoverished city in Pennsylvania looking to sell off assets and potentially avoid bankruptcy. But the outlook isn’t good.

He borrowed $300 million to renovate a trash-to-energy incinerator. He spent $7 million to bring a Double-A Baseball team to the city. He wanted to spent another $391.3 million to build a hydro-electric dam, but regulators stopped the deal.

Despite that failed attempt to build a dam, the city is facing a wall of debt – more than eight times its general fund budget. So the question has become: will Harrisburg survive?

The City of Roseville is going to the goats. As part of the city’s effort to reduce fire risk, the city has hired a private company to bring in a herd of goats to clear firebreaks between homes and open space.

The goats can eat up to 5 percent of their body weight each day, making them effective and eco-friendly lawn mowers. On average, 100 goats can clear about 1 acre of growth per day.

The company hired for the work, Ecosystems Concepts, uses “a forced intensive livestock grazing method is employed to achieve the desired vegetation management goals,” according to a release issued by the Roseville Fire Department. The end-result of the grazing animals will be a 30-foot wide firebreak that would protect homes by destroying fuel for any potential summer fires.

Stockton is beginning to work on its budget for 2012/13, or at least the parts not associated with the AB 506 process. But do to the confidentiality rules associated with AB 506, the city will not be able to address general fund expenses until outcomes are known.

That means the city has to plan for three eventualities: successful negotiations, unsuccessful negotiations resulting in massive cuts, or bankruptcy. Work on all three scenarios will begin behind closed doors, but the process will move before the public when the AB 506 process concludes. No budget will be adopted, according to city officials, without being vetted by the public first.

Under the May Budget revision revealed by Governor Jerry Brown on Monday, California will continue to fight looming deficits with cuts, taxes, and borrowing.

“We have a more difficult problem and we’ll have to cut deeper,” said Governor Brown at the press conference. “I’m linking serious budget reductions with a plea to the voters: please increase taxes temporarily.”

Continuing with the status quo in the face of the $16 billion deficit would place California in the same predicament as European nations such as Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and others, he said.

On the west side of the San Gabriel Valley sits the city of South Pasadena. With 25,000 residents, it is a community steeped with pride and history. A great opportunity exists for a well qualified candidate to help shape the city’s future.

South Pasadena is seeking a dynamic, team-oriented individual for the position of Assistant City Manager – responsible for managing staff in human resources and risk management, working proactively to recruit small businesses and providing support to existing local businesses. This person will also work with the executive management team to evaluate service delivery effectiveness and implement best practices to realize efficiencies in public service delivery.

Many cities have faced one hardship or another during the recent economic downturn. However, Lincoln seems to have suffered them all, and all are clearly on display.

The city experienced exponential population growth – 250 percent in just 10 years. Over eight years, new home construction rose from 83 houses to 2,807 – or a 3,382 percent increase. And as a result, the city’s service and infrastructure had a corresponding increase. Now that the boom has gone bust, the city hall sits half vacant, a fire engine and station is shuttered, a library closed, and nearly half of the police force has left.

In fact, staffing has taken such a hit in the city that if two fire fighters call in sick or on vacation at the same time, one of the two open stations must close. There are only 19 firefighters left.

The city is hampered by tax revenues. Home values remain abysmally low – after a 45 percent drop from the peak prices. Because the city never developed a robust commercial or retail center, the city averages just $44 per year in sales tax for each of its residents. Neighboring Roseville collects $235 per resident. And its likely that a slow recovery both of the economy and housing prices will protract the pain in the city, leading to further cuts of city services and staffing

Healthcare districts were once responsible for running hospitals, but their roles have transitioned over the last decades into one of supporting community health efforts. Now, the Legislature wants to mandate they save less and spend more.

Health districts are funded by tax revenue and in recent years they have been spending less than they have taken in. In the case of one district in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, they spent just 17 percent of the money they brought in. The bill pending before the Legislature would not only require that these districts spend 95% of all revenues received, but they would need to give an account of how they money was spent to local leaders.

The hope is to increase transparency, accountability, and responsibility.

AB 1692 is growing in infamy. Local government groups first raised the alarm, which was echoed on PublicCEO. Now Sac Bee columnist Dan Walters is also calling attention to the bill.

AB 1692 would unravel many of the compromises over AB 506, turning a good bill back into an unprecedented grab of local government authority.

Walter’s column isn’t a call to action as many of the other pieces on the topic have been. Instead, it briefly spells out what the conversation is and why it is once again reappearing on the Assembly agenda. At the end of the day, the immediate interest in the AB 506 process from two cities has the Capitol and its interests wondering if tighter controls to restructuring debts are a good idea.

Should AB 1692 be approved as it currently stands, it would be the first time roadblocks, if not full on prohibitions to bankruptcy, have ever been implemented in California.