The Sacramento Bee published a piece on pensions that is gaining a lot of attention around local government folks. Be sure to surf through the hundreds of comments, as well.

This year, the city of Roseville will spend about as much to fund its pension plan as it does on parks and recreation.

San Luis Obispo County will spend five times as much on pensions as it does prosecuting criminals.

And Stanislaus County’s pension costs will be nearly double its $23.5 million general fund budget deficit.

The initial logic of increasing retirement benefits to retain quality employees has been turned on its head: Paying for those benefits is forcing local governments to lay off employees – and cut programs.

Read the entire article here.