In the News...

Budget and pension issues continue to dominate the local government news. Here's a sampling of what the media has been writing about this past week.

The San Bernardino Sun wrote up a summary of the challenges faced by most of the local cities in their region (click here). Employee furloughs, frozen cost of living increases and borrowing from non-General fund sources was a recurring theme in most of the cities. Some have adopted their budgets, but those with budgets will likely need to change them due to the state budget. The cities that haven't increased staffing or have been slow to adjust salaries seem to have the most stable budgets.

The City of Los Angeles has finally reached an agreement with 22,000 workers. As part of the package, cost of living increases were delayed by two years and about 2,400 employees will take early retirement. The changes were needed to deal with a $350 million budget deficit. Click here to read more.

Rohnert Park is laying off 25 employees, mostly in public safety to close their budget gap. Click here to read more.

In Contra Costa County, there is a lot of consternation about the latest listing of retiree salaries. 423 retirees are now earning over $100,000 per year. Read more here.