Labor Issues in City of Sacramento, and a bit of State Budget News

At tonight's Sacramento City Council meeting, a huge utility rate increase is on the agenda. There is some Council opposition to this rate hike. Coincidentally, newshounds have revealed an internal memorandum noting that 430 utility workers may face layoffs. Click here for more information on the layoffs and click here to read more about the proposed utility hike.

In addition, City of Sacramento firefighters have now proposed to forgo raises until 2012 in exchange for an assurance from city negotiators that no firefighters will be laid off and staffing on fire engines will not be reduced in the next 30 months. 68 positions in the fire department are at risk if a labor agreement can't be reached. Read more about the situation here. Click here for the Bee's editorial today on the issue and click here to read one Bee columnists take on the situation.

There is some good news from Sacramento today--from the state government of all places. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has unveiled a counter to the Governor's budget proposal that eliminates the $2 billion loan from local government. It also proposes softer cuts to many social services and proposes less reserve funds to offset the reduction in cuts. While this is only the first of many counter proposals, it is nice to see that the majority party is not endorsing the short term loan from us locals. Read more here.