Thank you, Mike and everyone else who has written on this scam. There's something else shocking to me about how this misuse of funds has gone on as long as it has: where have our local newspapers been during this? Why didn't The Independent do an investigation into this? Did the News-Press?
At one time, Santa Barbara had Tom Stork. I have my own quibbles with Stork's legacy, but he was a newsman. He did investigations. We've only really had a rah rah paper for the Left here for far too long.
The recent overturn with the owners of WaPo, USA Today and the LA Times refusing to endorse Kamala Harris is a victory that I personally have been celebrating. It's as huge a take back of American values as Trump's victory would/will be. And Trump is a major part of this media awakening, in fact without Trump and without the TDS that those newspapers became guilty of enflaming, it wouldn't have happened, the public wouldn't have become suspicious of the media.
So thank you to Jim Buckley and James Fenkner and the columnists for Santa Barbara Current. I hope you all already see a victory, whatever the outcome on November 5th is. And that's you helping to make American journalism great again. It's always had its flaws, but what it became during the last eight years is simply garbage and propaganda.
Here, here Polly. You will recall McCall lost control of the NP once the union ganged up on her for cracking down on “editorial expression” in news stories. Now, you can’t even give away the remaining printing presses as part of the bankruptcy. And to think we now have to depend on Jerry Roberts for political commentary!
How to trigger instant apoplexy among the "progressives" in this town? Just mention the name Wendy McCaw.
God love you Wendy. We miss having your forum for the real exchange of ideas across the spectrum; not the canned left wing knee jerk resources we are stuck with today.
Bravo Santa Barbara Currents - our last life line where political discourse remains free, even when we disagree.
I love watching how all these “journalists” right now are outraged. As Glenn Greenwald wrote “In what dream world are these people living? This is utterly self-serving dreck, a self-flattering fairy tale, that is completely unhinged from any objective reality. Like virtually all corporate media outlets, the Washington Post has no “credibility” to squander. The opposite is true: the mass media is now held in the lowest esteem of any major American institution, somehow even lower than Congress. And the major reason why is that the public perceives – accurately – that large media outlets do not try to tell the truth, but instead lie on purpose to advance their political, ideological, and partisan preferences.”
I think Musk has been a huge force for the good. These guys like Bezos are looking at him and saying “He does what he wants to and thinks is right. Why am I being a wimp? I'm one of the richest most powerful men in the world!” I never thought I'd say this, but I have hope for the global elite. They could just save us.
I think you are naive. Bezos and Musk are competing for control over the surveillance apparatus that is being set up piece by piece. They are putting up the satellites for the 5-g mesh in the battle to harvest more of the information about our every thought, view, preference and discussion. This will be used to enslave us in a social credit score type of system with carrots and sticks to "nudge" us into the desired behavior, even if it is getting a chip installed or forgoing having children. COVID tyranny was only a preview, but it demonstrates the mechanisms used to get lower level managers such as SBCC trustees or school principles or hospital admins to be "nudged" in the "correct" direction and how social media and mainstream media can be censored by the government to "program" us with no meaningful way for the citizens to organize and push back. Cheering for good oligarchs vs bad is not what our founding fathers claimed to envision for us.
Aimee, I lived and worked in the NYC media world for a few decades. Get off your high horse - you aren't as smart as you like to think you are about everything on earth despite your degree.
Important to remember too that for many decades the WashPo had immense connections with the CIA. (That was a different era, granted, and I have zero idea whether the current WashPo maintains that kind of “we’re buddies!” relationship with the Intel world that it once did.)
Signed, a former employee of the Washington Post company.
Bloated college staff, salaries and facilities have been primarily enabled by the federal government taking over the job of giving out student loans. Easily secured loans for all manner of useless courses of study will eventually be forgiven. The graduate in environmental science or queer theory is unequipped to earn a living or repay a loan. Until college loans are given with consideration for ability to repay, the bloat will persist. Nothing is as expensive as that which the government has sought to make affordable.
You mean, the government shouldn’t just pass bills, print money and pretend it’s accomplished something? Our representatives should actually fix some problems? What kind of dreamer are you???
What this article points out is what happens when voters put employee union interests on both sides of the bargaining table, as happened after the 2010 "coup" at SBCC. The subsequent decade of revolving-door college leadership created a power vacuum, allowing college employee union interests, with partisan support, to takeover the college.
A teaching moment for voters. In just 12 years of this one-sided, self-serving new SBCC board oversight we have watched the potential ruin of SBCC and its relationship with the tax-paying residents of the SBCC district.
Unfortunately, this also forced the latest new SBCC President to immediately go out for a bond issue before the community even got to know her; just to plug the gaping holes created by this lost decade of SBCC board oversight.
SBCC Board Policies can be found on the SBCC website. The changes to the Budgeting Fundamentals after the 2010 "coup" now enshrine tying SBCC compensation packages to be superior to all other community college districts in this state. This new Budgeting Fundamental requires chasing someone else's brass ring; which abdicates all local control and autonomy unique to the needs and realities of SBCC itself.
These new post-2010 SBCC Budgeting Fundamentals also enshrine putting personnel costs above all other budgeting considerations. Hence, the current failure to even consider long-term campus maintenance needs. This is where one hears: you care more about buildings than you do people during contract negotiations.
An additional new SBCC Budget Fundamental requires prioritizing college personnel as its "most valued resource", which also reinforces the need to put employee union negotiating demands over any campus infrastructure repair and maintenance needs. "Shared governance" at SBCC is missing one critical voice - that of the building and infrastructure needs. The post-coup SBCC board members did not fill that missing role.
These post-2010 changes to the SBCC Budgeting Fundamentals is how slowly the post 2010 SBCC "coup" boards of trustees lost control over the current out of balance SBCC budget. This is why SBCC will now require endless numbers of additional bond issues to bail out their own SBCC board- inflicted oversight and management failures now written into their own governing principles.
It shows. As they say, all politics are local. Big Bad Partisan Politics is now acted out in our own local agencies too.
SBCC today is a classic microcosm of what has already gone wrong in Sacramento after the year 2000, and far too many years of unelected deep state control in Wash DC.
These “Budgeting Fundamentals” have some kind of semi-legal stature in how the college is run??? (I have zero idea how these things work, as if you can’t tell.)
Separate thought: Why haven’t the Independent, Noozhawk and EdHat been all over this story since 2010??? Sad situation if something like this is getting no beady-eyed local coverage apart from the Current.
JL: we need 91.8K SBCC District Voters to get their ‘NO on P’ ballots marked and returned. As of today, only 35K have voted within the SCCommunity College District.
Owners of taxable properties who directly pay for school and other bonds are in the voter registered minority. There are about 30,000 registered students the majority who reside in tax exempt housing locally and will never pay any bond costs. There are also all residents of housing authority project tax exempt housing units who will pay nothing. Plus all those in most groups living retirement communities, and other tax exempt housing and care units. Property tax and approved Bond costs are passed on to renters by landlords: do they care?
Too bad homeowners and others of taxable properties aren’t organized. If increased bond taxes don’t matter to the majority of voters, what happens next? One next move is to sneak financing for new housing into school bonds which are easier to pass and also have a lower voter approval threshold. Only 55% versus two-thirds voter approval.
If Nextdoor comments act as an informal community poll, they seems to be running 60 No votes P comments to 7 Yes on P comments. 55% remains a high hurdle for SBCC, since in political circles, 55% of the vote is informally considered a landslide. I am not hearing landslide enthusiasm for Measure P passage in the wider community.
The upside of a failure to pass Mesure P is the new CEO can now get down to the real business of making the college budget work, for both buildings and personnel. No more wishful thinking.
The downside if this bond measure does win, is continuing SBCC business as usual. And going out for perpetual SBCC bond financing in order to avoid exercising future SBCC fiscal discipline.
Some states require only 80% of education resources can be spent on personnel costs, and 20% must be retained for infrasturre needs. By fiat. That principle would be my choice as a new SBCC governing board budgeting fundamental.
That would also make a far better argument to make to the voters. Resonates much better than their current proposal - we want all the state money for ourselves, and you are supposed to pay locally for everything else.
Measure P is also a carry along for the trustee vote in this election. Take a hard look at who is running for a trustee in your area? Are they outspoken hard core Leftest? These are the same who ran SBCC into the ground.
Are current employees of SBCC supporting the same left who bankrupt SBCC? Yes. Then are they the same supporters of Measure P who have used phones, emails, and office space to campaign for Measure P? You betcha and guess what these are campaign violations according to the State of Calif. Gov. is not supposed to use your money in a campaign opposing you.
YOU the voter have the option of stating no confidence or "no" when faced with a candidate you object to but there is no one running against them.
If you have not voted do so. If you see an empty suit running make sure you vote against them. You will see a lot of that in NoLeta and Goleta.
Thanks Mike, for showing us the salaries. Having 9 Superintendents/presidents is the "name-game" meaning that title is used to benchmark the salaries. The title "superintendent" implies responsibility for maintaining the building: time to review their performances against this requirement. Sadly, a great deal of the money given to President Biden to help rebound from COVID was spent on increasing the number and salaries of public employees. No private company can pay these salaries and survive.
Thank you Mike for shedding light on this ongoing con job. When reviewing the salaries of CC employees, it should be clear to all that Measure P is no more than a scam masquerading as a works project benefiting our youth. The fact that there has not been a meaningful investigation by our Grand Jury into the sanctioned theft of tax dollars, goes to show how corrupt our local government has become. Yes, the Unions involved with this fleecing scheme rivals anything perpetrated by organized crime.
Shame on any who allowed their names to be used in support of this corrupt and shameful Measure.
Agree: shame on the liars and proponent supporters. Do know the Grand Jury has investigated a school bond fraud allegation: L2020. It was turned over for criminal indictment. However, small time politics intervened. So guess what? Rather than criminal charges, promotions. It’s usually the same scenario on Santa Barbara County: it’s incestuous, all who you know. There is no justice in school matters. The corruption is deep from County Office of Education to Districts and the D.A. Office.
Jeff the article includes data from 2012 to 2022. SBCC has not yet filed its 2023 data. Bizarre. Employees got their IRS W2 forms. I wonder WHY required payroll data not submitted.
Be sure to remember Transparent California when donating. Super important service providing govt salary transparency.
John Thomas, it was Stoker's number not mine and I was questioning it. That's what that funny curvy thing at the end of a string of words is for??? Resist Google it saps your brain.
OK, I agree. It is a strange sentence. "You will then find that a total of 30,947 employees (some were counted twice )were employed from 2012-2022 " Having an employee count over a decade.... And for whatever it's worth - it's been the counter arguments posted on the Current which lead me to vote no on P..
Wow, eye-opening piece. I don’t know how I’d be able to make sense of politics here in SB without the Current and its roster of tough, smart writers. Many thanks to all. I wouldn’t mind learning more about that coup back in 2010. Hey: good topic for a column!
This was back when AG Kamala Harris was also sabotaging two state ballot proposals trying to remedy the emerging public pension crisis. Special interests that supported this ruinous shift in public pension compensation formulas, may well have been motivated to take over every single elected office that they did not have fully under their control.
At the same time, the state AG Kamala Harris had the ability to re-write the short ballot language synopsis for each proposition, which could ensure any ballot proposition could fail or pass.
Around the same time, a certain outside force also decided to own the state AG offices, as more critical to their own agenda than even winning the governor's office.
Yes, all of this was happening around the same time. Locally, state wide and nationwide. The predicted outcomes at that time are now staring us in the face.
I enjoyed the oped piece from Marsha Croninger. It explained a lot of the failures. It is sad so many in charge don’t take into account falling enrollment in their thinking. Downsizing is not a bad thing.
Flattening local enrollments were becoming obvious in 2010. Trustee Croninger for years has been on public record, warning about the systemic out of balance SBCC budgets at public community forums.
Trustees have two primary duties: maintain fiscal and institutional integrity and bring local community sensibilities into college discussions, before registering their final college policy votes.
Only two out of the seven current SBCC trustees take these duties seriously; which does not provide healthy oversight of SBCC. The current majority of SBCC trustees flunk their primary fiduciary duties owed local taxpayers.
Who *are* the five bad SBCC trustees? Can we name names and tell tales, or is that something we shouldn’t be putting in print? If so: drinks are on me.
Thanks for this Mike. I've already posted on NextDoor. I don't need slick 4-page mailers to reach the public. Just the facts reported honestly. Thanks for adding your voice.
The Dems have figured out how to transfer money without the use of guns. But it's still a Mafia organization, don't forget that! It's all about money going where they want it to. And maybe now they are concerned the money handling practice of this Mafia is coming to an end.
Thank you Mike for sharing your institutional knowledge about SBCC and the SB Tax Payers Assoc. Thank you to the SB Current for providing a platform for some of the issues that The Independent and Noozhawk would rather sweep under the rug. The dishonest mailing by a moribund group is the kind of smoke and mirrors behavior that alienates decent people from politics. But I implore all of you reading this to instead, become more engaged as a citizen to monitor, organize and advocate, but in a manner that is honorable and can serve to inspire others to do the same. That is the only way I can see for us to overcome the deep level of corruption that goes all the way down to the grassroots in our country and area. We must be clear that shortcuts and dishonest tactics won't cut it to root out corruption and steadfast in our resolve that our children and grandchildren deserve a functioning society.
Thank you for this expose on the grift going on, no surprise. And I appreciate the endorsements. Heres a dumb question, since I've always voted on election day, how does one vote early? Does that mean mail in, or can one go down to the registration office on C Real and vote early?
Nadine you can also vote at the County Election Office on Calle Real. Booths are in place. Unsheltered/ homeless are bused in to vote there. Folks needing or wanting assistance, or added confidence that there ballot is secure go to the Election Office. Also there’s a drop box out front, if you prefer.
Apparently, the safest drop box is at the Calle Real County elections office. In the last election, I used the drop box at the Anacapa County Administration office four days before the election and was informed only two days after the election that my ballot was finally recorded.
Time to elect a new County Recorder-Clerk and Tax Assessor and a new county board of supervisors to bring back one day elections, polling place voting only (with very few hardship exceptions) and immediate local on site counting of paper ballots, done under full and direct trained volunteer transparent oversight.
Zero tolerance for error is the only standard. Do not let them farm out these critical duties and dare say they save money, in exchange for loss of control over our own local election processes.
Without saying no to Meaure P, tough love for SBCC, and disciplining this current out of balance board relationship with the community, it will now be an endless cycle of additional bond measures for our once beloved local community college.
It does not need to be this way. Prop 98 guarantees base level funding for community colleges, which now automatically takes 50% off the top of all state general funds and directs them to K-14.
Additionally, the intentional misrepresentations and evasions presented in the SBCC Measure P marketing mailers also shock the conscience. This is a very generic , slickly-produced bond marketing campaign package, which is also symptomatic of what has gone so very wrong with our local community college. The current board of SBCC trustees continues to abdicate their own local control and autonomy over the future of SBCC.
Vote NO on P -this is the only way to get SBCC back on track and become our local community college again. Then one by one remove your current board members for dereliction of their fundamental duties to the entire local community; not just the organized internal forces who now dominate control of SBCC.
Mike, submit this to Noozhawk, Indy and the Mesa paper. There are many people who don't see the Current and are being misled by the other side. They are being bombarded with mailers and ads. I think it will be helpful for these voters to see what is really going on with this measure. You should do it soon since the election is only 6 days from now.
Thank you, Mike and everyone else who has written on this scam. There's something else shocking to me about how this misuse of funds has gone on as long as it has: where have our local newspapers been during this? Why didn't The Independent do an investigation into this? Did the News-Press?
At one time, Santa Barbara had Tom Stork. I have my own quibbles with Stork's legacy, but he was a newsman. He did investigations. We've only really had a rah rah paper for the Left here for far too long.
The recent overturn with the owners of WaPo, USA Today and the LA Times refusing to endorse Kamala Harris is a victory that I personally have been celebrating. It's as huge a take back of American values as Trump's victory would/will be. And Trump is a major part of this media awakening, in fact without Trump and without the TDS that those newspapers became guilty of enflaming, it wouldn't have happened, the public wouldn't have become suspicious of the media.
We need this on the local as well as national level. How great it would be if Marianne Partridge suddenly did a Jeff Bezos and wrote in her paper as he did in WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/28/jeff-bezos-washington-post-trust/
So thank you to Jim Buckley and James Fenkner and the columnists for Santa Barbara Current. I hope you all already see a victory, whatever the outcome on November 5th is. And that's you helping to make American journalism great again. It's always had its flaws, but what it became during the last eight years is simply garbage and propaganda.
Here, here Polly. You will recall McCall lost control of the NP once the union ganged up on her for cracking down on “editorial expression” in news stories. Now, you can’t even give away the remaining printing presses as part of the bankruptcy. And to think we now have to depend on Jerry Roberts for political commentary!
How to trigger instant apoplexy among the "progressives" in this town? Just mention the name Wendy McCaw.
God love you Wendy. We miss having your forum for the real exchange of ideas across the spectrum; not the canned left wing knee jerk resources we are stuck with today.
Bravo Santa Barbara Currents - our last life line where political discourse remains free, even when we disagree.
I love watching how all these “journalists” right now are outraged. As Glenn Greenwald wrote “In what dream world are these people living? This is utterly self-serving dreck, a self-flattering fairy tale, that is completely unhinged from any objective reality. Like virtually all corporate media outlets, the Washington Post has no “credibility” to squander. The opposite is true: the mass media is now held in the lowest esteem of any major American institution, somehow even lower than Congress. And the major reason why is that the public perceives – accurately – that large media outlets do not try to tell the truth, but instead lie on purpose to advance their political, ideological, and partisan preferences.”
Worth mentioning is, in 2016 the SBNP was the ONLY major newspaper which endorsed Trump and look what it got them!
Bezos just lost 200k lefty subscriptions for not endorsing Harris! See a connection?
I think Musk has been a huge force for the good. These guys like Bezos are looking at him and saying “He does what he wants to and thinks is right. Why am I being a wimp? I'm one of the richest most powerful men in the world!” I never thought I'd say this, but I have hope for the global elite. They could just save us.
But not Soros or his stupid son.
Can you picture what the Clinton Thanksgiving dinner table will now look like?
I think you are naive. Bezos and Musk are competing for control over the surveillance apparatus that is being set up piece by piece. They are putting up the satellites for the 5-g mesh in the battle to harvest more of the information about our every thought, view, preference and discussion. This will be used to enslave us in a social credit score type of system with carrots and sticks to "nudge" us into the desired behavior, even if it is getting a chip installed or forgoing having children. COVID tyranny was only a preview, but it demonstrates the mechanisms used to get lower level managers such as SBCC trustees or school principles or hospital admins to be "nudged" in the "correct" direction and how social media and mainstream media can be censored by the government to "program" us with no meaningful way for the citizens to organize and push back. Cheering for good oligarchs vs bad is not what our founding fathers claimed to envision for us.
Aimee, I lived and worked in the NYC media world for a few decades. Get off your high horse - you aren't as smart as you like to think you are about everything on earth despite your degree.
WaPo does cater to those living off the taxpayer-funded Wash DC gravy train. They know their customer base.
Important to remember too that for many decades the WashPo had immense connections with the CIA. (That was a different era, granted, and I have zero idea whether the current WashPo maintains that kind of “we’re buddies!” relationship with the Intel world that it once did.)
Signed, a former employee of the Washington Post company.
The owner, Jeff Bezos, has big contracts with the CIA, so perhaps the more things change, the more they stay the same!
Thank you Mr. Stoker for laying out some of the relevant history on this Measure.
Bloated college staff, salaries and facilities have been primarily enabled by the federal government taking over the job of giving out student loans. Easily secured loans for all manner of useless courses of study will eventually be forgiven. The graduate in environmental science or queer theory is unequipped to earn a living or repay a loan. Until college loans are given with consideration for ability to repay, the bloat will persist. Nothing is as expensive as that which the government has sought to make affordable.
You mean, the government shouldn’t just pass bills, print money and pretend it’s accomplished something? Our representatives should actually fix some problems? What kind of dreamer are you???
What this article points out is what happens when voters put employee union interests on both sides of the bargaining table, as happened after the 2010 "coup" at SBCC. The subsequent decade of revolving-door college leadership created a power vacuum, allowing college employee union interests, with partisan support, to takeover the college.
A teaching moment for voters. In just 12 years of this one-sided, self-serving new SBCC board oversight we have watched the potential ruin of SBCC and its relationship with the tax-paying residents of the SBCC district.
Unfortunately, this also forced the latest new SBCC President to immediately go out for a bond issue before the community even got to know her; just to plug the gaping holes created by this lost decade of SBCC board oversight.
SBCC Board Policies can be found on the SBCC website. The changes to the Budgeting Fundamentals after the 2010 "coup" now enshrine tying SBCC compensation packages to be superior to all other community college districts in this state. This new Budgeting Fundamental requires chasing someone else's brass ring; which abdicates all local control and autonomy unique to the needs and realities of SBCC itself.
These new post-2010 SBCC Budgeting Fundamentals also enshrine putting personnel costs above all other budgeting considerations. Hence, the current failure to even consider long-term campus maintenance needs. This is where one hears: you care more about buildings than you do people during contract negotiations.
An additional new SBCC Budget Fundamental requires prioritizing college personnel as its "most valued resource", which also reinforces the need to put employee union negotiating demands over any campus infrastructure repair and maintenance needs. "Shared governance" at SBCC is missing one critical voice - that of the building and infrastructure needs. The post-coup SBCC board members did not fill that missing role.
These post-2010 changes to the SBCC Budgeting Fundamentals is how slowly the post 2010 SBCC "coup" boards of trustees lost control over the current out of balance SBCC budget. This is why SBCC will now require endless numbers of additional bond issues to bail out their own SBCC board- inflicted oversight and management failures now written into their own governing principles.
Vote No on P.
Unfortunately Unions are on both sides of the Santa Barbara City Council bargaining table
It shows. As they say, all politics are local. Big Bad Partisan Politics is now acted out in our own local agencies too.
SBCC today is a classic microcosm of what has already gone wrong in Sacramento after the year 2000, and far too many years of unelected deep state control in Wash DC.
These “Budgeting Fundamentals” have some kind of semi-legal stature in how the college is run??? (I have zero idea how these things work, as if you can’t tell.)
Separate thought: Why haven’t the Independent, Noozhawk and EdHat been all over this story since 2010??? Sad situation if something like this is getting no beady-eyed local coverage apart from the Current.
JL: we need 91.8K SBCC District Voters to get their ‘NO on P’ ballots marked and returned. As of today, only 35K have voted within the SCCommunity College District.
Owners of taxable properties who directly pay for school and other bonds are in the voter registered minority. There are about 30,000 registered students the majority who reside in tax exempt housing locally and will never pay any bond costs. There are also all residents of housing authority project tax exempt housing units who will pay nothing. Plus all those in most groups living retirement communities, and other tax exempt housing and care units. Property tax and approved Bond costs are passed on to renters by landlords: do they care?
Too bad homeowners and others of taxable properties aren’t organized. If increased bond taxes don’t matter to the majority of voters, what happens next? One next move is to sneak financing for new housing into school bonds which are easier to pass and also have a lower voter approval threshold. Only 55% versus two-thirds voter approval.
If Nextdoor comments act as an informal community poll, they seems to be running 60 No votes P comments to 7 Yes on P comments. 55% remains a high hurdle for SBCC, since in political circles, 55% of the vote is informally considered a landslide. I am not hearing landslide enthusiasm for Measure P passage in the wider community.
The upside of a failure to pass Mesure P is the new CEO can now get down to the real business of making the college budget work, for both buildings and personnel. No more wishful thinking.
The downside if this bond measure does win, is continuing SBCC business as usual. And going out for perpetual SBCC bond financing in order to avoid exercising future SBCC fiscal discipline.
Some states require only 80% of education resources can be spent on personnel costs, and 20% must be retained for infrasturre needs. By fiat. That principle would be my choice as a new SBCC governing board budgeting fundamental.
That would also make a far better argument to make to the voters. Resonates much better than their current proposal - we want all the state money for ourselves, and you are supposed to pay locally for everything else.
Measure P is also a carry along for the trustee vote in this election. Take a hard look at who is running for a trustee in your area? Are they outspoken hard core Leftest? These are the same who ran SBCC into the ground.
Are current employees of SBCC supporting the same left who bankrupt SBCC? Yes. Then are they the same supporters of Measure P who have used phones, emails, and office space to campaign for Measure P? You betcha and guess what these are campaign violations according to the State of Calif. Gov. is not supposed to use your money in a campaign opposing you.
YOU the voter have the option of stating no confidence or "no" when faced with a candidate you object to but there is no one running against them.
If you have not voted do so. If you see an empty suit running make sure you vote against them. You will see a lot of that in NoLeta and Goleta.
Good article
Cars Are Basic: Excellent summation with recommended action! VOTE, but be careful who and what you vote for.
Thanks Mike, for showing us the salaries. Having 9 Superintendents/presidents is the "name-game" meaning that title is used to benchmark the salaries. The title "superintendent" implies responsibility for maintaining the building: time to review their performances against this requirement. Sadly, a great deal of the money given to President Biden to help rebound from COVID was spent on increasing the number and salaries of public employees. No private company can pay these salaries and survive.
Thank you Mike for shedding light on this ongoing con job. When reviewing the salaries of CC employees, it should be clear to all that Measure P is no more than a scam masquerading as a works project benefiting our youth. The fact that there has not been a meaningful investigation by our Grand Jury into the sanctioned theft of tax dollars, goes to show how corrupt our local government has become. Yes, the Unions involved with this fleecing scheme rivals anything perpetrated by organized crime.
Shame on any who allowed their names to be used in support of this corrupt and shameful Measure.
Agree: shame on the liars and proponent supporters. Do know the Grand Jury has investigated a school bond fraud allegation: L2020. It was turned over for criminal indictment. However, small time politics intervened. So guess what? Rather than criminal charges, promotions. It’s usually the same scenario on Santa Barbara County: it’s incestuous, all who you know. There is no justice in school matters. The corruption is deep from County Office of Education to Districts and the D.A. Office.
30,000 employees for 13,000 students? Is this true?
Jeff the article includes data from 2012 to 2022. SBCC has not yet filed its 2023 data. Bizarre. Employees got their IRS W2 forms. I wonder WHY required payroll data not submitted.
Be sure to remember Transparent California when donating. Super important service providing govt salary transparency.
You can google that Jeff...... might not be to 0.1 FTE accuracy but you'll find out you're off by 30x or so.
John Thomas, it was Stoker's number not mine and I was questioning it. That's what that funny curvy thing at the end of a string of words is for??? Resist Google it saps your brain.
OK, I agree. It is a strange sentence. "You will then find that a total of 30,947 employees (some were counted twice )were employed from 2012-2022 " Having an employee count over a decade.... And for whatever it's worth - it's been the counter arguments posted on the Current which lead me to vote no on P..
Wow, eye-opening piece. I don’t know how I’d be able to make sense of politics here in SB without the Current and its roster of tough, smart writers. Many thanks to all. I wouldn’t mind learning more about that coup back in 2010. Hey: good topic for a column!
Sawbilly the 2010 SBCC Coup is definitely a story every school bond taxpayer needs to hear. The coup was orchestrated by Mayor Marty Blum …
This was back when AG Kamala Harris was also sabotaging two state ballot proposals trying to remedy the emerging public pension crisis. Special interests that supported this ruinous shift in public pension compensation formulas, may well have been motivated to take over every single elected office that they did not have fully under their control.
At the same time, the state AG Kamala Harris had the ability to re-write the short ballot language synopsis for each proposition, which could ensure any ballot proposition could fail or pass.
Around the same time, a certain outside force also decided to own the state AG offices, as more critical to their own agenda than even winning the governor's office.
Yes, all of this was happening around the same time. Locally, state wide and nationwide. The predicted outcomes at that time are now staring us in the face.
I enjoyed the oped piece from Marsha Croninger. It explained a lot of the failures. It is sad so many in charge don’t take into account falling enrollment in their thinking. Downsizing is not a bad thing.
Flattening local enrollments were becoming obvious in 2010. Trustee Croninger for years has been on public record, warning about the systemic out of balance SBCC budgets at public community forums.
Trustees have two primary duties: maintain fiscal and institutional integrity and bring local community sensibilities into college discussions, before registering their final college policy votes.
Only two out of the seven current SBCC trustees take these duties seriously; which does not provide healthy oversight of SBCC. The current majority of SBCC trustees flunk their primary fiduciary duties owed local taxpayers.
Who *are* the five bad SBCC trustees? Can we name names and tell tales, or is that something we shouldn’t be putting in print? If so: drinks are on me.
Who voted to put Measure P before the voters, and who voted against this proposal? Which SBCC trustees do you want in charge of spending your money?
Thanks for this Mike. I've already posted on NextDoor. I don't need slick 4-page mailers to reach the public. Just the facts reported honestly. Thanks for adding your voice.
The Dems have figured out how to transfer money without the use of guns. But it's still a Mafia organization, don't forget that! It's all about money going where they want it to. And maybe now they are concerned the money handling practice of this Mafia is coming to an end.
Exactly! Everything with the big D party is about your money and how to take and spend it.
You had me at, "vote no."
Thank you Mike for sharing your institutional knowledge about SBCC and the SB Tax Payers Assoc. Thank you to the SB Current for providing a platform for some of the issues that The Independent and Noozhawk would rather sweep under the rug. The dishonest mailing by a moribund group is the kind of smoke and mirrors behavior that alienates decent people from politics. But I implore all of you reading this to instead, become more engaged as a citizen to monitor, organize and advocate, but in a manner that is honorable and can serve to inspire others to do the same. That is the only way I can see for us to overcome the deep level of corruption that goes all the way down to the grassroots in our country and area. We must be clear that shortcuts and dishonest tactics won't cut it to root out corruption and steadfast in our resolve that our children and grandchildren deserve a functioning society.
Thank you for this expose on the grift going on, no surprise. And I appreciate the endorsements. Heres a dumb question, since I've always voted on election day, how does one vote early? Does that mean mail in, or can one go down to the registration office on C Real and vote early?
Nadine you can also vote at the County Election Office on Calle Real. Booths are in place. Unsheltered/ homeless are bused in to vote there. Folks needing or wanting assistance, or added confidence that there ballot is secure go to the Election Office. Also there’s a drop box out front, if you prefer.
Apparently, the safest drop box is at the Calle Real County elections office. In the last election, I used the drop box at the Anacapa County Administration office four days before the election and was informed only two days after the election that my ballot was finally recorded.
Time to elect a new County Recorder-Clerk and Tax Assessor and a new county board of supervisors to bring back one day elections, polling place voting only (with very few hardship exceptions) and immediate local on site counting of paper ballots, done under full and direct trained volunteer transparent oversight.
Zero tolerance for error is the only standard. Do not let them farm out these critical duties and dare say they save money, in exchange for loss of control over our own local election processes.
Without saying no to Meaure P, tough love for SBCC, and disciplining this current out of balance board relationship with the community, it will now be an endless cycle of additional bond measures for our once beloved local community college.
It does not need to be this way. Prop 98 guarantees base level funding for community colleges, which now automatically takes 50% off the top of all state general funds and directs them to K-14.
Additionally, the intentional misrepresentations and evasions presented in the SBCC Measure P marketing mailers also shock the conscience. This is a very generic , slickly-produced bond marketing campaign package, which is also symptomatic of what has gone so very wrong with our local community college. The current board of SBCC trustees continues to abdicate their own local control and autonomy over the future of SBCC.
Vote NO on P -this is the only way to get SBCC back on track and become our local community college again. Then one by one remove your current board members for dereliction of their fundamental duties to the entire local community; not just the organized internal forces who now dominate control of SBCC.
Mike, submit this to Noozhawk, Indy and the Mesa paper. There are many people who don't see the Current and are being misled by the other side. They are being bombarded with mailers and ads. I think it will be helpful for these voters to see what is really going on with this measure. You should do it soon since the election is only 6 days from now.