SB Current should make William Alexander the guest of honor at the next GOP bash. Give that guy a medal! And his own horse in the next Fiesta parade — yes, a horse for that man! He embodies the spirit of this battered old town! He’ll get more cheers than the decrepit Boomer No Kings parade any day.
The rise of government employee unions after 1962 led to the decline of civic volunteerism. Good community volunteer intentions were deemed to be "taking away a government employee union members job".
This led to losing the glue that used to hold a community together pre 1962 - the world many of us grew up in - defined by civic volunteerism.
Now any volunteer attempts are mired in red tape and endless liability waivers to sign. With nary a thank you, even when you do find an approved city volunteer activity. Just more annual liability waivers to sign.
The food situation is the same way. I'm sure your grandparents did what mine did during the Great Depression, cook enough food so they could put extra out for community members suffering poverty and needing to feed their families. The Progressives not only don't get proper food to the poor, they have damaged community bonds and created people who think a socialist government should — and will take care of them.
Thank you Bonnie for your ongoing efforts in blowing the whistle on public employee excess. What is the optimal number of public employees based on SB population? My understanding is there is 1 employee for every 59 population? The state average being 113? Numbers can be deceiving and confusing. One city in Orange County, Vernon, has more employees than the population!
The obvious concern is the ticking pension time bomb that will eventually go off. All compounded by the state deficit of $19 billion!
With business and population heading for the exits from the high costs of California, then what? Bankruptcy, receivership, financial collapse, meltdown of the municipal bond market?
There would appear to be a correlation to the number of City workers per population based on affluence and liberal-left leaning policies, ie 1 City Worker for every:
LT: Wait until every property owner is assessed a supplemental tax — parcel or via bonds— to pay for unfunded pensions. I’d welcome debate on a 20% pay cut for all California government, school, and other employees paid over $200K to build up the pension fund. BTW: At Wednesdays SBRCC meeting, north county delegates actually support increasing taxation! Do those Republicans they represent seek to be taxed more?
The remedy Monte? How about class action lawsuits by taxpayer groups targeting city officials for violating our civil rights as taxpayers, holding them personally liable?
Elected officials, (City Council, Mayor, BOS) have a FIDUCIARY DUTY to steward our tax dollars responsibly, and when they breach their duty should be held civilly/criminally liable.
Every year I first donate to TransparentCalifornia. Why? Because my money is limited, my savings are essential to my survival until death, and elected leaders waste it! I’m grossly over taxed as a single retiree because government workers are the highest paid and forever pensioned with ownership rights to their jobs!
There was no easily accessible data for spending accountability by government, schools, health care and entitlements, until TransparentCalifornia. I’ve been an CA political activist since 1978. Support Transparent California: staff are responsive to calls and follow up to get answers.
The County of Santa Barbara has yet to submit: why not? Mona’s staff is 10 months late. Excuses, excuses, and more excuses. 5,347 SB County employee records for 2023. Where’s 2024?
“Transparent California is the state’s largest public pay and pension database. We fight tirelessly for records on the public’s behalf and make them available for anyone to access. Our records are unique because they go beyond the self-reported data available elsewhere and include important identifiers like names.
“Since 2014, we’ve coupled this data with in-depth research and analysis that we share with the public and media. These findings have exposed fraud and spurred reforms at the state and local level. We continue to provide taxpayers and concerned citizens with the information they need to hold public agencies accountable.
“Your donation helps support our work of making California governments more transparent and accountable to the people they exist to serve.”
Thank you, Bonnie once again, for shining a spotlight into a dark closet. I would not expect the “ public servants” at the next city council, or county board of supervisors do anything but defend all this waste. They, no doubt, will tell us how they deserve every dime., and need a raise. This compensation, etc., is beyond absurd, and is an insult to all the taxpayers of this city. Having owned pigs, my observation was that there was no limit to the amount they would consume, or the ferocity with which they would fight for every scrap thrown in their pen.
A GS-15 federal government employee here in CA tops out at $195,200. That’s a person running an entire department on a base here with thousands of employees and much more than the entire city’s budget in total obligation authority. The top Senior executive Service (SES) civilian running the entire base at Vandenberg or Naval Base Ventura County is capped at $225,200. Tens of thousands of base employees and billions in total obligation authority. Not to mention high stakes operations running under them like space launches or ballistic missile defense testing. The Vice President’s salary is $298k. Thats the hard cap for total compensation anyone can receive in the federal govt.
Speaking of, the highly skilled federal employee that runs the entire live fire events on a range for intercepts in space or at RIMPAC with multiple countries involved makes like $130k. You don’t need to use your toes to count how many people have that skill set.
Having spent most of my life on the federal side with highly skilled humans managing things that only a handful of humans on earth are qualified to do, these city numbers are mind boggling.
Hello former Commander Robert "Bob" Smith, the real question is how many people working for the City and County have serious connections of conflict like best friends,
family members and same political party. Can we all say "Good Ole Boys and Gals"
Take a close look at the City and County HR Dept for your clues>>
Why the disparity between Federal and City worker salaries? Union representation and the ability of collective bargaining and being able to extort local governments with strikes!
Teacher union members have more direct political influence on our local elected offices, who then carve up the spoils once they get their favored candidates elected. This operates with little oversight by the public. If the "teachers"are for something, who would dare go against them?
Whereas everyone complains about their IRS taxes; but not about the Prop 98 carveout to K-12 that is already built into the system.
SBCC tops out at $450K plus and that is not even for the CEO, but an "associate professor" who is also the faculty union bargaining representative. She teaches in the accounting department. She obviously knows how to add; but I worry what she is teaching her students.
That is when the SBCC Union Rep from Germany actually teaches. Check her out on Rate Your Professor. SBCC is totally puppet mismanaged by a singular far left progressive voice.
The prior 10 years of total leadership vacuum and chaos at SBCC allowed the unions to move in unchecked. Now their contracts are built into the system.
Current CEO leadership finally has a realistic grasp on the damage inflicted on the college during those chaotic years, when the Democrat government employee union interests took over the college oversight and CEO's came and went on nearly an annual basis.
The compensation packages are crazy. If we have all these amazingly well paid administrators why the heck do we need consultants or outsourced contracts. Water billing seems to be outsourced, Dog licenses, What else?
I’d like to see a list of all city functions that are contracted to vendors. Or, is outsourced how many cit employees in those departments?
Also, what are the “benefits” besides the pension plan?
Cadillac-level health insurance programs is a very pricey and always escalating part of the total government employee benefits package. Since they are paid without protest by the unwitting taxpayers and not the employee directly, this amount also sets the floor for what health insurance companies expect everyone else to pay for similar privately-funded health insurance plans.
Pension payments to CalPERS per agreement are now getting carved out as a separate benefits charge when listing the employee full compensation package. This amount used to be hidden as a city operating expense, paid off the top and not included as part of the city employee full compensation package. This pension payment owed by the taxpayers to the government employees has been an increasing share every year.
This increasing pension charge to taxpayers is because of the long history of underfunding CalPers and the unknown final pension amounts demanded by "defined-benefit" government pension recipients.
Every year CalPers sends its pension partners the bills necessary to make up this difference. This amount is now growing every year since baby boomer government employees are now retiring and drawing on those pension formulas promised decades earlier, that were never fully funded.
This is the "fiscal cliff" we have long been warned about. It is finally happening.
Costs to tax payers is the only way to look at any government employee compensation package. Not just looking at their actual their take home pay, but to include the ever increasing benefits package costs for their bargained-for health insurance and pensions including and also built-in automatic bonus payments.
When city revenues stay the same or decline and city employee full compensation package has automatic built in increases every single year, who is asked to suffer when city employees complain.....they have not had a raise in years and their morale is bad?
Now you know why city employee unions worked so hard over the past 20+ years to sit on both sides of the bargaining table so they can spend more of your tax dollars on themselves. School districts, same thing.
......"CalPERS says its pension benefits are only 79% funded, leaving the state, and its taxpayers, on the hook for the other 21%. According to a recent report from Reason Foundation, CalPERS’ pension shortfall is approximately $180 billion. ........"
NB: (At least CalPERS is showing better investment returns in Trump's current economy and business friendly administration.
To compensate for the teachers unions sending out millions of anti-capitalist, socialist acolytes every single year. And for their own past decades of grotesque underperformance, compared to what the unions promised their members. $180 billion will take some Nancy Pelosi level invests to just tred water.)
Bonnie- After I digested the depressing list of city employee salaries my heart was warmed when I read the report of the Army Veteran performing the palm frond cleanup!
An uninformed and poorly educated populous has led to this abomination,That is Santa Barbara, as well as California as a whole. The school system turns out these little social warrior with no job skills and bent on changing the world. The UC system imports them from around the country and world and magnifies the problem by keeping them here with an ever growing public sector job Forse. I think its grown to somewhere around 17% of total population. It’s a calculation that was made long about ago by the teachers association and executed to perfection.
While automatic Prop 98 billions keeps flowing into California public education unchecked, with no strings attached.
Our good civic-minded intentions as voters, immediately got co-opted by the teachers unions. Then California K-12 sunk into the race to the bottom as a result of this automatic free flow of cash into their hands.
A teaching moment - what "free money" does to original good intentions. We see this play out every single time. We need to bring back grit and reinstall accountability for every single tax dollar taken from generous and well-meaning taxpayers.
I would like to see the city demonstrate to its housing provider tax payers how GREAT it is to freeze their income while letting all their expenses rise! ( rent control) show us how that works!!
It would be good to identify those who continue to oppose these valid and practical suggestions. Which most likely includes the SB Independent editorial board.
Thanks Bonnie, I'd like to see you look into Santa Maria 's payroll budget also. It seems that working for municipal cities really pays off. As a retired letter carrier, I used to wonder about city workers doing street repairs. To fix a pothole,I'd see at least 5 people. The dump truck driver,one doing the actual work, and two to three standing around. You can go to the City's website and see actual salaries for various positions. But what you won't see is their retirement benefits which are usually full salary,and medical benefits. CalPers is essentially broke,and they all pay into it. Granted I was a union worker and my pay and benefits are good. But take a look at the pay they receive, sometimes it's more than a Congressman or the President. Is that really fair or justified? The excuse of having to attract qualified workers is a lie, considering the decisions they make. School boards are another can of worms altogether. I could go on,but I do applaud city workers who do the best they can,and have to abide by their superior's decisions. Thanks for letting me vent.
I just read the link you provided, astounding. Another matter that's probably not on the subject is Catholic Charities. Santa Maria serves more of the poor than Santa Barbara,but gets crumbs in monies/ support. Why? All these high salaries by officials could serve their communities if they donate out of their surplus. I hate to sound negative,but...
Bill- Catholic Charities and many of our thousand NPOs and NGOs on ‘The Giving List’ (aka Taking List) are huge local problems for aiding, abetting, and entitling those unlawfully in our community taking up housing and resources; and citizens on the take. After WW1, we evolved into a ‘Nation of Citizens’ valuing freedom and independence. In 1965, LBJs Great Society turned us into a “socialist nation” with entitlements for all, and a welcoming country to foreigners previously excluded. Now try to take away what has been given! It’s proving impossible as protestors include average day ‘compassionate’ American citizens who fail to comprehend we’re out of money, and refuse to respect existing immigration laws. Fraud is rampant, give away freebies far too generous, and voter expectations high for continuation of status quo “rights” aka freebies. What’s are the solutions? Start the debate.
I really appreciate your writing,but I must clarify. I worked in Lompoc,but knew someone who worked in Santa Maria. I didn't like how they treated some city firefighters who were asking for a raise. Reading your article just got to me,and I had to reply.
Transparent California website also has separate listings to pension payouts too. CalPERS and CalSTRS cover most government employees, but there are number of other specialty government employee pension funds as well
You can search by both name of the recipient or the individual pension funds paying these pension benefits. Some are pure pension only, and some as you state, also include lifetime medical coverage as well.
A one-time structured housing stipend might be offered to "attract" city job applicants; not an ongoing bonus annual compensation package that must be paid every single year to "attract the best applicants". With this "attraction" compensation being used to bump up every other city employees compensation package commensurately, whether they have long ago settled into life here or not.
What exactly defines the "best" applicants anyway? We are at a crossroads fiscally were these questions not only must be asked, they must be answered. What bragging rights did we get hiring only "the best State Street consultants"?
Unfortunately these critical questions are now left unasked by this growing city council majority that has no business experience, no independent leadership track record, and zero large multi-million dollar operations expertise. Just a city council majority now taking orders from the very same government employee union interests that got them elected in the first place. What remains so very wrong with this current picture?
Message to all city employees and city applicants: Accept the opportunity to live in this attractive and relatively benign municipality is adequate attraction enough, when faced with competing jurisdictions. There is no reason to keep adding "attractive" retention benefits every single year and ride herd on the subsequent fall out then demanded by all other city employees.
If city employees come here only for the attraction of more money, we most likely do not need or want them having anything to with the business of Santa Barbara anyway. Far too many operating myths continue to drive the ever-increasing city compensation shakedown into play when city employee unions bargain, or become triggered by key administrative personnel turnovers. Name these operating myths, question them and dispel them with proper prudence.
Again, is the reality of local housing prices better handled by a structured one time housing allowance rather than this rising tides for all boats insatiable compensation response? Let's discuss this.
Government employees quite frankly should be paying us for the privilege of living and working in this premium location. Including saying thank you to the local taxpayers on a routine basis, instead of always hearing the exact same tiresome litany every single bargaining or hiring season: we are under-paid, over-worked, under-appreciated, and our morale is bad. Give us more money; and be sure to fund all those built-in compensation escalators you now owe us too.
If that indeed is the case, more money won't fix this chronic employee unhappiness. We do not buy and sell their bad morale. Good morale what they are required to bring into the job itself, before they even come to their city desk. Thank you for your service, but it is time for you to move on to happier circumstances since this is not satisfactory situation for you. Not all employment benefit are tangible.
Let’s hope Linda McMahon is successful and totally dismantling the department of education. It will be a good first step to putting the first nail in the California teachers associations coffin.🙏🏼🤞🏼
Unfortunately, teachers unions are state operations not federal. But dismantling the NLRB could be a good start to break the power or any government employee unions.
Bonnie, great information thanks for putting the details together. I wonder why the top salary at $486,000 a year is not based on performance that type of salary demands a specific set of goals that need to be reached and as Macado outlined, she has four priorities homelessness, State Street and two others, which I don’t recall she should be tasked with meeting those setting goals and meeting those goals to earn her bonus even Elon Musk yeah he’s gonna get $1 trillion but has anybody looked at what he needs to do to get to that 1 trillion almost impossible. It’s time that we go to performance based salaries base salary 119,000 great but let’s anything above that needs to be on the basis of performance. Cheers.
This would take a new city council majority, who has the final say on these critical matters. How do we get this, just using the upcoming 2026 city council election as a working model?
How has the switch to district elections effectively disenfranchised the city issues as a whole. When two full voting seats go to only a few hundred voters, in two specially created and protected districts, while it takes thousands of votes to win the other five seats; only one of which is voted on by the city at large.
Who is up for election in 2026 and what will we do to get our entire city council moving in a new direction? This is not an abstract question. This is a call to city wide commitment to take back charge of our entire city.
So right on! The current district system allows those candidates to focus on the district issues but not the overall issues facing the city. We’ve got to get at least 2 maybe 3 new members. Sneddon, Harmon and Santa Maria all need to go
---1. Harmon (Westdowntown) will be termed out, to be replaced by someone even more destructive as the current reading, until another candidate comes forth and is positively supported. Bike coalition was responsible for Harmon.
---2. Santamaria(Eastside protected-district) just got elected; she needs to be recalled since she is a one-woman wrecking crew up to her neck with city employee union interests.
---3. Sneddon (Riviera, Upper East San Roque) also termed out, but is running for mayor. Democrat operatives already sniffing out her current district.
2 out of 3 is not bad. Need to put some candidates that are well qualified. To me that means someone who has experience in the real world. Recall of santamaria probably difficult, unless there’s a smoking gun out there
The smoking gun is the fact it only took a few hundred votes total for her to win in this specially"protected" district, which SCOTUS may soon declare to be unconstitutional.
Public Employees Benefits-Breaking the Taxpayers Bank
From Washington to Santa Barbara, taxpayers are finding that they can no longer afford civil service workers with union benefits. They are breaking the bank at all levels and have in general exceeded the income and benefits of the private sector that pays for civil service benefits.
Civil service unions are the bane of the taxpayers because, unlike private unions, there is no way to control them. The workers are held slaves to them.
In the private sector, there is a company profit motive and a board of directors who are motivated to control costs and therefore employee’ wages and benefits, while in the civil service there are no such controls.
The elected Democratic politicians, whether federal, state or local city are beholding to their union fundraisers and vote getters and are hard put not to do their bidding. The private sector taxes used to pay union demands are not the politician’s money so they are not as reluctant to give out the benefits as the private sector is. The Democrats are happy to spend other people’s money for their own benefits.
Unions extort dues from the workers so they can hold their jobs and then the unions use the dues to promote their own agenda whether the employees like it or not. The unions almost always support tax and spend Democratic candidates or liberals of any stripe.
Unions cause more workers to lose their jobs because of these actions.
The elected officials do not have the backbone to say NO! after taking union dues to get elected.
The Democrats and their news media buddies promote the union causes to stay in power.
We taxpayers elect our representatives to be our watchdogs over the civil service but our trust is undermined by the fact that the elected officials become civil servants themselves and are not eager to limit their benefits no more than the government employees that they oversee.
There is therefore a collusion of self-interests in which the taxpayers are locked out of the process. The result is always more benefits followed by more taxes to pay for them.
We must eliminate ALL civil service unions. The Democrats started this mess; the taxpayers are going to end it. Private sector unions are fewer every day.
Elect candidates who are dedicated to changing this benefit crisis and bring about fiscal restraint and balance to our government systems by their being the watchdogs for the taxpayers and not the self -serving civil servants we presently have.
However, as long as the voters continue to elect Democrats with their media and union buddies, this budget deficits condition will not be eliminated. Municipal bankruptcies will continue to grow as taxpayers cannot afford to pay for civil service benefits. The civil service is supposed to be a service to the taxpayers not to the employees. Justin M. Ruhge, Lompoc CA 93436
SB Current should make William Alexander the guest of honor at the next GOP bash. Give that guy a medal! And his own horse in the next Fiesta parade — yes, a horse for that man! He embodies the spirit of this battered old town! He’ll get more cheers than the decrepit Boomer No Kings parade any day.
The rise of government employee unions after 1962 led to the decline of civic volunteerism. Good community volunteer intentions were deemed to be "taking away a government employee union members job".
This led to losing the glue that used to hold a community together pre 1962 - the world many of us grew up in - defined by civic volunteerism.
Now any volunteer attempts are mired in red tape and endless liability waivers to sign. With nary a thank you, even when you do find an approved city volunteer activity. Just more annual liability waivers to sign.
The food situation is the same way. I'm sure your grandparents did what mine did during the Great Depression, cook enough food so they could put extra out for community members suffering poverty and needing to feed their families. The Progressives not only don't get proper food to the poor, they have damaged community bonds and created people who think a socialist government should — and will take care of them.
Thank you Bonnie for your ongoing efforts in blowing the whistle on public employee excess. What is the optimal number of public employees based on SB population? My understanding is there is 1 employee for every 59 population? The state average being 113? Numbers can be deceiving and confusing. One city in Orange County, Vernon, has more employees than the population!
The obvious concern is the ticking pension time bomb that will eventually go off. All compounded by the state deficit of $19 billion!
With business and population heading for the exits from the high costs of California, then what? Bankruptcy, receivership, financial collapse, meltdown of the municipal bond market?
https://www.ocregister.com/2025/07/25/which-cities-are-the-most-well-staffed/amp/
There would appear to be a correlation to the number of City workers per population based on affluence and liberal-left leaning policies, ie 1 City Worker for every:
Buellton: 196
Carpinteria: 177
Goleta: 212
Lompoc: 100
Oxnard: 122
Santa Barbara: 59*
Santa Maria: 150
SLO: 84
Ventura: 125
San Francisco: 22
Beverly Hills: 31
LT: Wait until every property owner is assessed a supplemental tax — parcel or via bonds— to pay for unfunded pensions. I’d welcome debate on a 20% pay cut for all California government, school, and other employees paid over $200K to build up the pension fund. BTW: At Wednesdays SBRCC meeting, north county delegates actually support increasing taxation! Do those Republicans they represent seek to be taxed more?
The remedy Monte? How about class action lawsuits by taxpayer groups targeting city officials for violating our civil rights as taxpayers, holding them personally liable?
Elected officials, (City Council, Mayor, BOS) have a FIDUCIARY DUTY to steward our tax dollars responsibly, and when they breach their duty should be held civilly/criminally liable.
Meanwhile in Lompoc…
https://lompocrecord.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/lompoc-councilman-steve-bridge-charged-with-8-felonies-including-forgery-grand-theft/article_576b8049-c6c6-5c79-81d7-998ea6e743af.amp.html
Every year I first donate to TransparentCalifornia. Why? Because my money is limited, my savings are essential to my survival until death, and elected leaders waste it! I’m grossly over taxed as a single retiree because government workers are the highest paid and forever pensioned with ownership rights to their jobs!
There was no easily accessible data for spending accountability by government, schools, health care and entitlements, until TransparentCalifornia. I’ve been an CA political activist since 1978. Support Transparent California: staff are responsive to calls and follow up to get answers.
The County of Santa Barbara has yet to submit: why not? Mona’s staff is 10 months late. Excuses, excuses, and more excuses. 5,347 SB County employee records for 2023. Where’s 2024?
https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2023/santa-barbara-county/
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“Transparent California is the state’s largest public pay and pension database. We fight tirelessly for records on the public’s behalf and make them available for anyone to access. Our records are unique because they go beyond the self-reported data available elsewhere and include important identifiers like names.
“Since 2014, we’ve coupled this data with in-depth research and analysis that we share with the public and media. These findings have exposed fraud and spurred reforms at the state and local level. We continue to provide taxpayers and concerned citizens with the information they need to hold public agencies accountable.
“Your donation helps support our work of making California governments more transparent and accountable to the people they exist to serve.”
Good for you Monty for supporting Transparent Of California probably the ONLY
Institution that is TRANSPARENT IN ALL OF CALI!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you, Bonnie once again, for shining a spotlight into a dark closet. I would not expect the “ public servants” at the next city council, or county board of supervisors do anything but defend all this waste. They, no doubt, will tell us how they deserve every dime., and need a raise. This compensation, etc., is beyond absurd, and is an insult to all the taxpayers of this city. Having owned pigs, my observation was that there was no limit to the amount they would consume, or the ferocity with which they would fight for every scrap thrown in their pen.
A GS-15 federal government employee here in CA tops out at $195,200. That’s a person running an entire department on a base here with thousands of employees and much more than the entire city’s budget in total obligation authority. The top Senior executive Service (SES) civilian running the entire base at Vandenberg or Naval Base Ventura County is capped at $225,200. Tens of thousands of base employees and billions in total obligation authority. Not to mention high stakes operations running under them like space launches or ballistic missile defense testing. The Vice President’s salary is $298k. Thats the hard cap for total compensation anyone can receive in the federal govt.
Speaking of, the highly skilled federal employee that runs the entire live fire events on a range for intercepts in space or at RIMPAC with multiple countries involved makes like $130k. You don’t need to use your toes to count how many people have that skill set.
Having spent most of my life on the federal side with highly skilled humans managing things that only a handful of humans on earth are qualified to do, these city numbers are mind boggling.
Hello former Commander Robert "Bob" Smith, the real question is how many people working for the City and County have serious connections of conflict like best friends,
family members and same political party. Can we all say "Good Ole Boys and Gals"
Take a close look at the City and County HR Dept for your clues>>
https://www.countyofsb.org/1360/Human-Resources
Do these folks discriminate on hiring?
https://santabarbaraca.gov/government/departments/human-resources/inclusion-diversity-equity-accessibility-idea
See ANYTHING In COMMON with these fine Professionals in each DEI HR Depts?
Why the disparity between Federal and City worker salaries? Union representation and the ability of collective bargaining and being able to extort local governments with strikes!
Teacher union members have more direct political influence on our local elected offices, who then carve up the spoils once they get their favored candidates elected. This operates with little oversight by the public. If the "teachers"are for something, who would dare go against them?
Whereas everyone complains about their IRS taxes; but not about the Prop 98 carveout to K-12 that is already built into the system.
SBCC tops out at $450K plus and that is not even for the CEO, but an "associate professor" who is also the faculty union bargaining representative. She teaches in the accounting department. She obviously knows how to add; but I worry what she is teaching her students.
That is when the SBCC Union Rep from Germany actually teaches. Check her out on Rate Your Professor. SBCC is totally puppet mismanaged by a singular far left progressive voice.
The prior 10 years of total leadership vacuum and chaos at SBCC allowed the unions to move in unchecked. Now their contracts are built into the system.
Current CEO leadership finally has a realistic grasp on the damage inflicted on the college during those chaotic years, when the Democrat government employee union interests took over the college oversight and CEO's came and went on nearly an annual basis.
Beware the mayoral candidate that is in lock step!
The compensation packages are crazy. If we have all these amazingly well paid administrators why the heck do we need consultants or outsourced contracts. Water billing seems to be outsourced, Dog licenses, What else?
I’d like to see a list of all city functions that are contracted to vendors. Or, is outsourced how many cit employees in those departments?
Also, what are the “benefits” besides the pension plan?
Cadillac-level health insurance programs is a very pricey and always escalating part of the total government employee benefits package. Since they are paid without protest by the unwitting taxpayers and not the employee directly, this amount also sets the floor for what health insurance companies expect everyone else to pay for similar privately-funded health insurance plans.
Pension payments to CalPERS per agreement are now getting carved out as a separate benefits charge when listing the employee full compensation package. This amount used to be hidden as a city operating expense, paid off the top and not included as part of the city employee full compensation package. This pension payment owed by the taxpayers to the government employees has been an increasing share every year.
This increasing pension charge to taxpayers is because of the long history of underfunding CalPers and the unknown final pension amounts demanded by "defined-benefit" government pension recipients.
Every year CalPers sends its pension partners the bills necessary to make up this difference. This amount is now growing every year since baby boomer government employees are now retiring and drawing on those pension formulas promised decades earlier, that were never fully funded.
This is the "fiscal cliff" we have long been warned about. It is finally happening.
Costs to tax payers is the only way to look at any government employee compensation package. Not just looking at their actual their take home pay, but to include the ever increasing benefits package costs for their bargained-for health insurance and pensions including and also built-in automatic bonus payments.
When city revenues stay the same or decline and city employee full compensation package has automatic built in increases every single year, who is asked to suffer when city employees complain.....they have not had a raise in years and their morale is bad?
Now you know why city employee unions worked so hard over the past 20+ years to sit on both sides of the bargaining table so they can spend more of your tax dollars on themselves. School districts, same thing.
Oops, in the meantime the Dummy who is overseeing the investments…
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/3866806/ca-state-retirement-fund-lost-71-468m-put-in-clean-energy-wont-say-how/
From your link:
......"CalPERS says its pension benefits are only 79% funded, leaving the state, and its taxpayers, on the hook for the other 21%. According to a recent report from Reason Foundation, CalPERS’ pension shortfall is approximately $180 billion. ........"
NB: (At least CalPERS is showing better investment returns in Trump's current economy and business friendly administration.
To compensate for the teachers unions sending out millions of anti-capitalist, socialist acolytes every single year. And for their own past decades of grotesque underperformance, compared to what the unions promised their members. $180 billion will take some Nancy Pelosi level invests to just tred water.)
Calpers is circling the bowl and won’t even talk about. In effect, a news blackout!
https://youtu.be/-7oCD8vk3GY?si=K9KE1ZBuzcPbD9R3
We are now talking about this. Keep it up. And hold every single elected officials feet to the fire, until they finally get it too.
Bonnie- After I digested the depressing list of city employee salaries my heart was warmed when I read the report of the Army Veteran performing the palm frond cleanup!
Thank you to William Alexander!
An uninformed and poorly educated populous has led to this abomination,That is Santa Barbara, as well as California as a whole. The school system turns out these little social warrior with no job skills and bent on changing the world. The UC system imports them from around the country and world and magnifies the problem by keeping them here with an ever growing public sector job Forse. I think its grown to somewhere around 17% of total population. It’s a calculation that was made long about ago by the teachers association and executed to perfection.
We’re screwed
While automatic Prop 98 billions keeps flowing into California public education unchecked, with no strings attached.
Our good civic-minded intentions as voters, immediately got co-opted by the teachers unions. Then California K-12 sunk into the race to the bottom as a result of this automatic free flow of cash into their hands.
A teaching moment - what "free money" does to original good intentions. We see this play out every single time. We need to bring back grit and reinstall accountability for every single tax dollar taken from generous and well-meaning taxpayers.
I could not agree more, Elce.
Good luck, trying to instill some “grit“ into any teachers union official.
I would like to see the city demonstrate to its housing provider tax payers how GREAT it is to freeze their income while letting all their expenses rise! ( rent control) show us how that works!!
Thank you!!
This needs to be published in the Independant and other publications the general public reads!!
It would be good to identify those who continue to oppose these valid and practical suggestions. Which most likely includes the SB Independent editorial board.
GREAT revelation re $$. spent....and kudos to the Vet !
Thanks Bonnie, I'd like to see you look into Santa Maria 's payroll budget also. It seems that working for municipal cities really pays off. As a retired letter carrier, I used to wonder about city workers doing street repairs. To fix a pothole,I'd see at least 5 people. The dump truck driver,one doing the actual work, and two to three standing around. You can go to the City's website and see actual salaries for various positions. But what you won't see is their retirement benefits which are usually full salary,and medical benefits. CalPers is essentially broke,and they all pay into it. Granted I was a union worker and my pay and benefits are good. But take a look at the pay they receive, sometimes it's more than a Congressman or the President. Is that really fair or justified? The excuse of having to attract qualified workers is a lie, considering the decisions they make. School boards are another can of worms altogether. I could go on,but I do applaud city workers who do the best they can,and have to abide by their superior's decisions. Thanks for letting me vent.
Bill: 2023 total compensation for Santa Maria | Transparent California
https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2023/santa-maria/. Santa Maria has failed to report 2024 also.
I just read the link you provided, astounding. Another matter that's probably not on the subject is Catholic Charities. Santa Maria serves more of the poor than Santa Barbara,but gets crumbs in monies/ support. Why? All these high salaries by officials could serve their communities if they donate out of their surplus. I hate to sound negative,but...
Bill- Catholic Charities and many of our thousand NPOs and NGOs on ‘The Giving List’ (aka Taking List) are huge local problems for aiding, abetting, and entitling those unlawfully in our community taking up housing and resources; and citizens on the take. After WW1, we evolved into a ‘Nation of Citizens’ valuing freedom and independence. In 1965, LBJs Great Society turned us into a “socialist nation” with entitlements for all, and a welcoming country to foreigners previously excluded. Now try to take away what has been given! It’s proving impossible as protestors include average day ‘compassionate’ American citizens who fail to comprehend we’re out of money, and refuse to respect existing immigration laws. Fraud is rampant, give away freebies far too generous, and voter expectations high for continuation of status quo “rights” aka freebies. What’s are the solutions? Start the debate.
From today’s Noozehawk, apparently many NGO’s feeling the pinch as many have headed back south of the border.
https://www.noozhawk.com/nonprofit-leaders-talk-trends-challenges-at-santa-barbara-summit/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Noozhawk’s%20A.M.%20Report%2011.21.2025&utm_source=9ec8acd2c4&utm_source=Noozhawk&utm_campaign=4c6b79d971-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_11_17_12_32&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-4c6b79d971-247371824
Proving yet again, who in fact is the "charity" intended to support? The administrative overhead or the targeted recipients.
Good subject matter for a Grand Jury investigation!
BINGO! 2x
I really appreciate your writing,but I must clarify. I worked in Lompoc,but knew someone who worked in Santa Maria. I didn't like how they treated some city firefighters who were asking for a raise. Reading your article just got to me,and I had to reply.
Bill, remember I'm writing about the City of Santa Barbara.
Transparent California website also has separate listings to pension payouts too. CalPERS and CalSTRS cover most government employees, but there are number of other specialty government employee pension funds as well
You can search by both name of the recipient or the individual pension funds paying these pension benefits. Some are pure pension only, and some as you state, also include lifetime medical coverage as well.
A one-time structured housing stipend might be offered to "attract" city job applicants; not an ongoing bonus annual compensation package that must be paid every single year to "attract the best applicants". With this "attraction" compensation being used to bump up every other city employees compensation package commensurately, whether they have long ago settled into life here or not.
What exactly defines the "best" applicants anyway? We are at a crossroads fiscally were these questions not only must be asked, they must be answered. What bragging rights did we get hiring only "the best State Street consultants"?
Unfortunately these critical questions are now left unasked by this growing city council majority that has no business experience, no independent leadership track record, and zero large multi-million dollar operations expertise. Just a city council majority now taking orders from the very same government employee union interests that got them elected in the first place. What remains so very wrong with this current picture?
Message to all city employees and city applicants: Accept the opportunity to live in this attractive and relatively benign municipality is adequate attraction enough, when faced with competing jurisdictions. There is no reason to keep adding "attractive" retention benefits every single year and ride herd on the subsequent fall out then demanded by all other city employees.
If city employees come here only for the attraction of more money, we most likely do not need or want them having anything to with the business of Santa Barbara anyway. Far too many operating myths continue to drive the ever-increasing city compensation shakedown into play when city employee unions bargain, or become triggered by key administrative personnel turnovers. Name these operating myths, question them and dispel them with proper prudence.
Again, is the reality of local housing prices better handled by a structured one time housing allowance rather than this rising tides for all boats insatiable compensation response? Let's discuss this.
Government employees quite frankly should be paying us for the privilege of living and working in this premium location. Including saying thank you to the local taxpayers on a routine basis, instead of always hearing the exact same tiresome litany every single bargaining or hiring season: we are under-paid, over-worked, under-appreciated, and our morale is bad. Give us more money; and be sure to fund all those built-in compensation escalators you now owe us too.
If that indeed is the case, more money won't fix this chronic employee unhappiness. We do not buy and sell their bad morale. Good morale what they are required to bring into the job itself, before they even come to their city desk. Thank you for your service, but it is time for you to move on to happier circumstances since this is not satisfactory situation for you. Not all employment benefit are tangible.
…and end “pension spiking” now!
Let’s hope Linda McMahon is successful and totally dismantling the department of education. It will be a good first step to putting the first nail in the California teachers associations coffin.🙏🏼🤞🏼
Unfortunately, teachers unions are state operations not federal. But dismantling the NLRB could be a good start to break the power or any government employee unions.
Bonnie, great information thanks for putting the details together. I wonder why the top salary at $486,000 a year is not based on performance that type of salary demands a specific set of goals that need to be reached and as Macado outlined, she has four priorities homelessness, State Street and two others, which I don’t recall she should be tasked with meeting those setting goals and meeting those goals to earn her bonus even Elon Musk yeah he’s gonna get $1 trillion but has anybody looked at what he needs to do to get to that 1 trillion almost impossible. It’s time that we go to performance based salaries base salary 119,000 great but let’s anything above that needs to be on the basis of performance. Cheers.
This would take a new city council majority, who has the final say on these critical matters. How do we get this, just using the upcoming 2026 city council election as a working model?
How has the switch to district elections effectively disenfranchised the city issues as a whole. When two full voting seats go to only a few hundred voters, in two specially created and protected districts, while it takes thousands of votes to win the other five seats; only one of which is voted on by the city at large.
Who is up for election in 2026 and what will we do to get our entire city council moving in a new direction? This is not an abstract question. This is a call to city wide commitment to take back charge of our entire city.
So right on! The current district system allows those candidates to focus on the district issues but not the overall issues facing the city. We’ve got to get at least 2 maybe 3 new members. Sneddon, Harmon and Santa Maria all need to go
---1. Harmon (Westdowntown) will be termed out, to be replaced by someone even more destructive as the current reading, until another candidate comes forth and is positively supported. Bike coalition was responsible for Harmon.
---2. Santamaria(Eastside protected-district) just got elected; she needs to be recalled since she is a one-woman wrecking crew up to her neck with city employee union interests.
---3. Sneddon (Riviera, Upper East San Roque) also termed out, but is running for mayor. Democrat operatives already sniffing out her current district.
That is the raw material on the table right now.
2 out of 3 is not bad. Need to put some candidates that are well qualified. To me that means someone who has experience in the real world. Recall of santamaria probably difficult, unless there’s a smoking gun out there
The smoking gun is the fact it only took a few hundred votes total for her to win in this specially"protected" district, which SCOTUS may soon declare to be unconstitutional.
But how does a decision after the fact affect a recall
Public Employees Benefits-Breaking the Taxpayers Bank
From Washington to Santa Barbara, taxpayers are finding that they can no longer afford civil service workers with union benefits. They are breaking the bank at all levels and have in general exceeded the income and benefits of the private sector that pays for civil service benefits.
Civil service unions are the bane of the taxpayers because, unlike private unions, there is no way to control them. The workers are held slaves to them.
In the private sector, there is a company profit motive and a board of directors who are motivated to control costs and therefore employee’ wages and benefits, while in the civil service there are no such controls.
The elected Democratic politicians, whether federal, state or local city are beholding to their union fundraisers and vote getters and are hard put not to do their bidding. The private sector taxes used to pay union demands are not the politician’s money so they are not as reluctant to give out the benefits as the private sector is. The Democrats are happy to spend other people’s money for their own benefits.
Unions extort dues from the workers so they can hold their jobs and then the unions use the dues to promote their own agenda whether the employees like it or not. The unions almost always support tax and spend Democratic candidates or liberals of any stripe.
Unions cause more workers to lose their jobs because of these actions.
The elected officials do not have the backbone to say NO! after taking union dues to get elected.
The Democrats and their news media buddies promote the union causes to stay in power.
We taxpayers elect our representatives to be our watchdogs over the civil service but our trust is undermined by the fact that the elected officials become civil servants themselves and are not eager to limit their benefits no more than the government employees that they oversee.
There is therefore a collusion of self-interests in which the taxpayers are locked out of the process. The result is always more benefits followed by more taxes to pay for them.
We must eliminate ALL civil service unions. The Democrats started this mess; the taxpayers are going to end it. Private sector unions are fewer every day.
Elect candidates who are dedicated to changing this benefit crisis and bring about fiscal restraint and balance to our government systems by their being the watchdogs for the taxpayers and not the self -serving civil servants we presently have.
However, as long as the voters continue to elect Democrats with their media and union buddies, this budget deficits condition will not be eliminated. Municipal bankruptcies will continue to grow as taxpayers cannot afford to pay for civil service benefits. The civil service is supposed to be a service to the taxpayers not to the employees. Justin M. Ruhge, Lompoc CA 93436