With so much of our tax dollars, paying for the defined Contribution plans there’s a little left over to maintain the counties infrastructure or to deal with the social issues such as homelessness. I have a friend who retired from Santa Barbara County 18 years ago and is collecting over 200,000 a year. His union was able to jack up his last year‘s salary so that his pension is far more than what he earned while he was working for the county.
There are so many important projects that we need to deal with in the county as our infrastructure deteriorates, and as we see more and more homeless people wandering the streets, screaming obscenities. Those people need help. Not the county employees that are living off of some screwed up retirement plan. So the next time you drive down town and see some poor old lady pushing a shopping cart full of plastic bags remember the county employees that put her there. And not just county employees but they’re labor union .
Andy, great job quantifying the disgusting bloated public sector in Santa Barbara county. Articles like this should cause voters to consider supporting supervisors who advocate for fiscal restraint. Candidate Steve Lavagnino ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility yet joined the other board members in unaminanously approving our current and obscene $1,500,000,000.00 budget. So do candidates lie to get elected? Sure they do. Never listen to campaign promises. Instead consider that a candidate with experience in the private sector will appreciate that for most people money is earned rather than taken from others. Our current crop of supervisors can be described as belonging to the parasite class of society. While Lavagnino claims to have spent a few years in the aerospace industry the rest of the time he and all other members of the board have spent their entire careers at the public trough. I do not expect such vermon to understand fiscal restraint any more than a parasite sucking my blood might consider a fasting day. A successful parasite must not kill the host. We get what we deserve when we elect career politicians like the particularly offensive Laura Crapps and Das Williams. Until we start electing candidates with experience running a business we will continue hear that great sucking sound of your earned money going to the parasite class. Meanwhile will Pepto Bismol or Tums do a better job of getting rid of that bilious bolus at the back of my throat?
Agreed, but it much bigger than today’s topic…we continue to have conversations about the leave on the tree but fail to scrutinize its roots…bigger things are at play during this information war and many of our problems are being exposed…
MSM(exposed), Hollywood (exposed), Epstein Mossad pedo blackmail networks(exposed), central banking (exposed), Great reset(exposed), public school indoctrination (exposed), Biden family (exposed), Government corruption (exposed), Digital ID(exposed), CDC/Pharma(exposed), leftist grooming agenda(exposed), woke marxist ideology (exposed), Clinton coup attempt(exposed), election theft(exposed), etc. etc. etc.
now more than half the country (and growing) are awake, where they weren't a few yrs ago…the Trump Era has taught us much…public exposure is their greatest fear…
For a private person to get, say $50,000.00. from their savings they will need to have saved $1M. (Assuming that principle is earning 5% from, say, CDs.) Whether that $1M in an IRA (pre-tax) or not (after tax) they will have to have saved that amount. A public pensioner doesn't need to have saved anything to get their post retirement income.
Money saved is used by the institution holding the money to fund productive projects. Savers help build the future. Non savers don't.
These are frightening financial facts that Americans must face, and ask themselves, "How does a country, state, county, city, or family expect to exist spending money it does not have?"
Most American Corporations of any size, figured out about 40 years ago that if they continued with their open-ended defined benefit pension plans, they would go broke.
They, mainly, kept existing employees on the defined benefit plans, but new employees were offered only a defined contribution plan. By now, almost all the defined benefit plan recipients have gone to greener pastures.
Much later, about 12 - 15 years ago cities in Florida began to follow suit in replacing defined benefit plans with defined contribution plans for new employees.
Other cities in Florida, financially stretched by rising employments costs and the growth of retirement benefits, began significant downsizing of employees by contracting out the work of various city functions to expert Services. This gave them, often better, services at lower long-term costs.
It is way beyond time for taxpayers to force local government in California to reform and use zero-based budgeting to bring down the costs of every service they render and eliminate those that are not required. Also, to rapidly change the benefits system to a defined-contribution pensions.
If people are not willing to do this, they deserve the high taxes they are forced to pay and into the future.
I was not living in California during that time. Was there not recourse for the proposers and managers of the two ballot initiatives to sue Kamala Harris for malfeasance in office for altering the wording of the ballot initiatives?
Indeed, the California AG is in charge of editing any ballot proposals, which may be the reason so many of them contain such tracks as double negatives. Rule of thumb: if the ruling party supports it: don't vote for it. Remember, Kamala Harris was once the AG.
I worked 45 years as a FEDERAL employee. Our retirement was 60% of my highest 3 years averaged together. My state, county, and city counter parts at the time could get 110% of their highest year. It is no wonder that a state and local government worker once told me that they would be a fool to vote against any democrat. We (the Federal sector) lost many of our employees to state and local government positions due to higher salaries, better benefits, and retirement system called Cal Pers.
Democrats know how to buy votes and create more government jobs and handouts. I still am baffled why our military always get the short end of the deal every time. So wrong.
Democrats have discovered that public service can be a lucrative career, especially like in Congress where they set their own salaries and benefits befitting an elite class? Servants, my eye! They’ve morphed into corrupted self serving parasites!?? Out, out, damned spot⁉️😳😵😵💫. 🙏💕🇺🇸🙏
I will add this from Mr. Caldwell last statement " Whereas some of our military families still qualify for welfare because they are paid such a pittance (as little as $10-12 per hour), many public sector workers are retiring like millionaires.
I read this very good article by Mr. Caldwell on our SB "Public Servants" and I quote
"A Millionaire’s Retirement Plan"
"We used to define a public servant as a person who was employed to serve the public. That description is now extinct. Public servants have now become people who are served by the public."
Look at Nancy Polosi who has become very wealthy as a "Public Servant" perfectly trading stocks
"The Panama Papers investigation has been the biggest data leak in the ICIJ’s 21-year history – and the biggest data leak of all time. In 2015, an anonymous leak of 11.5 million documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed the illicit use of offshore bank accounts by the world’s rich and famous. The material comprised 40 years’ worth of confidential documents relating to over 200,000 companies in 21 tax havens, ranging from Switzerland and Hong Kong to Nevada in the US. These hideaways are used by individuals to conceal their true wealth from the tax authorities, behind a web of shell companies and accounts registered to front men or close relatives."
Do any of our SB Public Servant Executives have concealed Money Overseas Perhaps? Has anyone
popped the hood of our so-called-leaders finances?
Eleven of my family members served during WWII and not to make a quick buck or in this case here in SB ----- Millions of Big Bucks as so-called-Public-Leaders.
First of all, teachers do not get paid for the two months they are not instructing students. They get 10 monthly checks each year for their service that goes from early August to mid-June (and most are working 60-hour weeks, planning and grading on their non-instructional hours. Second, if their pay is so egregious and their retirement so amazing, why are there teacher shortages everywhere? Why are teachers forced to live far from Santa Barbara and commute in? By the original author and many of the comments on this thread's logic, wouldn't there be people lining up in droves for these positions? Make it make sense.
Maybe because there are a lot of people who don't want to be rewarded on the basis of seniority but want their pay to be determined by merit. I would never take a job that paid me the same amount as the worst performer in the organization. Maybe it's also because not many people want to work in a bureaucratic dysfunctional environment where more than half of the students are less than proficient in English and math, and disruptive students are not removed from the classroom.
Yes. All valid points that can be explored. I just think we can have that conversation without belittling the teachers' jobs (e.g. repeating the tired narrative that they only work 9 months a year. why?). I too feel like it's hard to justify paying, say, an AP Calculus teacher on the same salary schedule as others at the school who have less take-home work (e.g PE teacher). I also take issue with the 'ever-declining' quality of the product as that's too general of a statement. There are some impressive success stories here in our own backyard.
With so much of our tax dollars, paying for the defined Contribution plans there’s a little left over to maintain the counties infrastructure or to deal with the social issues such as homelessness. I have a friend who retired from Santa Barbara County 18 years ago and is collecting over 200,000 a year. His union was able to jack up his last year‘s salary so that his pension is far more than what he earned while he was working for the county.
There are so many important projects that we need to deal with in the county as our infrastructure deteriorates, and as we see more and more homeless people wandering the streets, screaming obscenities. Those people need help. Not the county employees that are living off of some screwed up retirement plan. So the next time you drive down town and see some poor old lady pushing a shopping cart full of plastic bags remember the county employees that put her there. And not just county employees but they’re labor union .
Mistake: I wrote contribution plan instead of benefit plan in my very first sentence.
Sadly the same set of "public servants" keeps getting re-elected. in S.B. and elsewhere.
Were you aware that President Biden funded the teamsters pension fund through 2050?
Andy, great job quantifying the disgusting bloated public sector in Santa Barbara county. Articles like this should cause voters to consider supporting supervisors who advocate for fiscal restraint. Candidate Steve Lavagnino ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility yet joined the other board members in unaminanously approving our current and obscene $1,500,000,000.00 budget. So do candidates lie to get elected? Sure they do. Never listen to campaign promises. Instead consider that a candidate with experience in the private sector will appreciate that for most people money is earned rather than taken from others. Our current crop of supervisors can be described as belonging to the parasite class of society. While Lavagnino claims to have spent a few years in the aerospace industry the rest of the time he and all other members of the board have spent their entire careers at the public trough. I do not expect such vermon to understand fiscal restraint any more than a parasite sucking my blood might consider a fasting day. A successful parasite must not kill the host. We get what we deserve when we elect career politicians like the particularly offensive Laura Crapps and Das Williams. Until we start electing candidates with experience running a business we will continue hear that great sucking sound of your earned money going to the parasite class. Meanwhile will Pepto Bismol or Tums do a better job of getting rid of that bilious bolus at the back of my throat?
It’s the hunger games folks. Private sector employees are the slaves of the government sector elites. Try and vote them out and change the system
Agreed, but it much bigger than today’s topic…we continue to have conversations about the leave on the tree but fail to scrutinize its roots…bigger things are at play during this information war and many of our problems are being exposed…
MSM(exposed), Hollywood (exposed), Epstein Mossad pedo blackmail networks(exposed), central banking (exposed), Great reset(exposed), public school indoctrination (exposed), Biden family (exposed), Government corruption (exposed), Digital ID(exposed), CDC/Pharma(exposed), leftist grooming agenda(exposed), woke marxist ideology (exposed), Clinton coup attempt(exposed), election theft(exposed), etc. etc. etc.
now more than half the country (and growing) are awake, where they weren't a few yrs ago…the Trump Era has taught us much…public exposure is their greatest fear…
For a private person to get, say $50,000.00. from their savings they will need to have saved $1M. (Assuming that principle is earning 5% from, say, CDs.) Whether that $1M in an IRA (pre-tax) or not (after tax) they will have to have saved that amount. A public pensioner doesn't need to have saved anything to get their post retirement income.
Money saved is used by the institution holding the money to fund productive projects. Savers help build the future. Non savers don't.
These are frightening financial facts that Americans must face, and ask themselves, "How does a country, state, county, city, or family expect to exist spending money it does not have?"
The terrifying answer is, "It doesn't."
Most American Corporations of any size, figured out about 40 years ago that if they continued with their open-ended defined benefit pension plans, they would go broke.
They, mainly, kept existing employees on the defined benefit plans, but new employees were offered only a defined contribution plan. By now, almost all the defined benefit plan recipients have gone to greener pastures.
Much later, about 12 - 15 years ago cities in Florida began to follow suit in replacing defined benefit plans with defined contribution plans for new employees.
Other cities in Florida, financially stretched by rising employments costs and the growth of retirement benefits, began significant downsizing of employees by contracting out the work of various city functions to expert Services. This gave them, often better, services at lower long-term costs.
It is way beyond time for taxpayers to force local government in California to reform and use zero-based budgeting to bring down the costs of every service they render and eliminate those that are not required. Also, to rapidly change the benefits system to a defined-contribution pensions.
If people are not willing to do this, they deserve the high taxes they are forced to pay and into the future.
I was not living in California during that time. Was there not recourse for the proposers and managers of the two ballot initiatives to sue Kamala Harris for malfeasance in office for altering the wording of the ballot initiatives?
Indeed, the California AG is in charge of editing any ballot proposals, which may be the reason so many of them contain such tracks as double negatives. Rule of thumb: if the ruling party supports it: don't vote for it. Remember, Kamala Harris was once the AG.
I’d like to see our military receive the pay our people in Congress receive and vise versa!
Then they’d truly be public servants.
I worked 45 years as a FEDERAL employee. Our retirement was 60% of my highest 3 years averaged together. My state, county, and city counter parts at the time could get 110% of their highest year. It is no wonder that a state and local government worker once told me that they would be a fool to vote against any democrat. We (the Federal sector) lost many of our employees to state and local government positions due to higher salaries, better benefits, and retirement system called Cal Pers.
Democrats know how to buy votes and create more government jobs and handouts. I still am baffled why our military always get the short end of the deal every time. So wrong.
Democrats have discovered that public service can be a lucrative career, especially like in Congress where they set their own salaries and benefits befitting an elite class? Servants, my eye! They’ve morphed into corrupted self serving parasites!?? Out, out, damned spot⁉️😳😵😵💫. 🙏💕🇺🇸🙏
I will add this from Mr. Caldwell last statement " Whereas some of our military families still qualify for welfare because they are paid such a pittance (as little as $10-12 per hour), many public sector workers are retiring like millionaires.
Howard Walther, member of a Military Family
I read this very good article by Mr. Caldwell on our SB "Public Servants" and I quote
"A Millionaire’s Retirement Plan"
"We used to define a public servant as a person who was employed to serve the public. That description is now extinct. Public servants have now become people who are served by the public."
Look at Nancy Polosi who has become very wealthy as a "Public Servant" perfectly trading stocks
https://nypost.com/2022/10/05/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-has-accrued-millions-from-husbands-trades-report/
How did SB Public Servants Executives amass millions and does that money flow into any Charitable Trusts?
How about offshore? The Panama Papers showed a large number of "Public Servants" Concealed thier Overseas Assets> https://neo4j.com/case-studies/the-international-consortium-of-investigative-journalists-icij/
"The Panama Papers investigation has been the biggest data leak in the ICIJ’s 21-year history – and the biggest data leak of all time. In 2015, an anonymous leak of 11.5 million documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed the illicit use of offshore bank accounts by the world’s rich and famous. The material comprised 40 years’ worth of confidential documents relating to over 200,000 companies in 21 tax havens, ranging from Switzerland and Hong Kong to Nevada in the US. These hideaways are used by individuals to conceal their true wealth from the tax authorities, behind a web of shell companies and accounts registered to front men or close relatives."
Do any of our SB Public Servant Executives have concealed Money Overseas Perhaps? Has anyone
popped the hood of our so-called-leaders finances?
Eleven of my family members served during WWII and not to make a quick buck or in this case here in SB ----- Millions of Big Bucks as so-called-Public-Leaders.
Howard Walther, member of a Military Family
J. Livingston's comment summarizes the problem perfectly.
First of all, teachers do not get paid for the two months they are not instructing students. They get 10 monthly checks each year for their service that goes from early August to mid-June (and most are working 60-hour weeks, planning and grading on their non-instructional hours. Second, if their pay is so egregious and their retirement so amazing, why are there teacher shortages everywhere? Why are teachers forced to live far from Santa Barbara and commute in? By the original author and many of the comments on this thread's logic, wouldn't there be people lining up in droves for these positions? Make it make sense.
Maybe because there are a lot of people who don't want to be rewarded on the basis of seniority but want their pay to be determined by merit. I would never take a job that paid me the same amount as the worst performer in the organization. Maybe it's also because not many people want to work in a bureaucratic dysfunctional environment where more than half of the students are less than proficient in English and math, and disruptive students are not removed from the classroom.
Yes. All valid points that can be explored. I just think we can have that conversation without belittling the teachers' jobs (e.g. repeating the tired narrative that they only work 9 months a year. why?). I too feel like it's hard to justify paying, say, an AP Calculus teacher on the same salary schedule as others at the school who have less take-home work (e.g PE teacher). I also take issue with the 'ever-declining' quality of the product as that's too general of a statement. There are some impressive success stories here in our own backyard.