Unions’ flawed Proposals come to light in Bankruptcy Declarations
	By Paul Norberg--Retired CFO (With Glitter Sprinkles from Katy Miessner--Aging Disco Queen)

July 6, 2008 

SUNSHINE ON THE CLOSED SESSIONS!

Now that the city has filed for protection under the bankruptcy act the actual proposals made by the unions have been filed as a public record.  Much of the information was previously disclosed in our analysis of the Rose Report and now the objections filed by the Unions against bankruptcy exposes the flawed reasoning behind their proposals.  And the Union proposal is more of the same that has been offered year-after-year-after-year. They are easing up on the city only enough to balance the budget for one year.

As we suspected, the Unions’ proposal was not sufficient to avoid bankruptcy.  The Unions again are attempting to use their proposal to extend their contracts and bloated pay. The unions’ proposal offers only the smallest concessions; just enough to balance the budget for the 2008/2009 fiscal year. But in return, they demand their contract—currently set to expire in June, 2010—be extended until June, 2014.

  3/7/08 

   The Gadfather Presents:  Public Safety Costs

                                            General Fund Fiscal Year 6/30/07 

By Paul Norberg--retired CFO--foreword by Marc Garman

It is with great pride that VIB presents a work of landmark proportions.  This document is a fiscal work of art.  A veritable rosetta stone of clarification.  An earth-shattering literary and factual revelation that dwarfs the works of both Tolstoy and Shakespeare.

Uuuh, okay okay.  If trying to comprehend public safety costs and get the overall picture makes your head fuzzy...this may help.

   Fringe Benefit and Extra Pay Costs

 2/28/08

By Paul Norberg--Retired CFO  (With Glitter Sprinkles from Katy Miessner--Aging Disco Queen)

Contrary to Fire Union Vice President and Fire Captain Jon Riley, the cause of out-of-control firefighter overtime is not due to too few firefighters.  The truth is it is actually less expensive to pay existing staff overtime than to hire new employees. Why?

Vallejo’s public safety employees—Fire and Police—are among the highest paid in the Bay Area.  They also have a very generous fringe benefit and extra pay program. In fact it is less expensive to pay existing staff overtime than to hire new employees.  Fringe benefits cost the city about 80% of a public safety employee’s base pay so no wonder the City is unable to hire more staff.  As Riley says, overtime is about 30% of an employee’s salary.  That’s a whole lot cheaper than 80% of an employee’s salary.   The full benefit and extra pay list follows at the end of article. 

 2/26/08
      Election Financing in Vallejo

Or, What does it cost to get elected to Vallejo's City Council

By Paul Norberg--Retired CFO (With Glitter Sprinkles from Katie Miessner--Aging Disco Queen)  

The November election was one the costliest in Vallejo’s history.  Erin Hannigan raised $75,758 and Mike Wilson raised $80,445.  In addition the United Workers For Local Government PAC spent over $26,000 each on Hannigan and Wilson plus another $34,675 on Pam Pitts.  These “Independent” expenditures by the PAC are not reported by the candidate and are in addition to the money raised by their campaign committees.  That brings the total income to over $100,000 each for Hannigan and Wilson. Contrast this to the $25,000 raised by Joanne Schivley.  In past elections Hermie Sunga and Tom Bartee were also supported by the unions who now, with Wilson and Hannigan, control a majority of the council.
 

Public Safety Salaries

          Why Are They so High?

02/20/2008

 By Paul Norberg--Retired CFO (With Glitter Sprinkles from Katy Miessner--Aging Disco Queen)

A History of Union Negotiations

We often hear that Vallejo’s public safety salaries—Fire and Police pay—are among the highest in the Bay Area and even the state. For a city with a low tax revenue base, with median household income among the lowest in the Bay Area, and with fire risk not different than other cities, how did  this happen? 

Here is a little history of our public safety contracts. They were originally negotiated in 2000 and covered the years 2000 to 2005 and then were extended to 2010.

In 2000, when the current Public Safety Union contracts were negotiated with the Fire and Police Unions, the City agreed to set union salaries at 10% higher than 14 surrounding cities and fire districts. If this weren’t bad enough, the 14 cities include affluent cities such as San Mateo, Santa Clara, Berkeley and Palo Alto, but exclude neighboring cities that are more like Vallejo: Fairfield, Vacaville and Napa. Future increases were based on the average increase of the 14 cities, so Vallejo would theoretically always be 10% higher than the other 14 cities. 

   Fund Accounting for Dummies

         OR

        Everything You Wanted to Know about Vallejo's Accounting Practices

            Written by Paul Norberg

            with glitter sprinkles from ADQ Katy Miessner

             01/08/2008  

The City is currently projecting that in 2 ½ years-by June 30, 2010-our General Fund will have a deficit of $22.6 million. 

The city has over $1 billion in assets and collects and spends about $300 million annually; this year about $82.8 million in the General Fund, and the remaining $217.2 million in other special funds. You might ask, why can't the city simply move money from one "fund" to another to solve the huge problem we are now facing with the General Fund?  To answer this question, first you need to understand the complexities of "Fund Accounting" and the restrictions it places on governmental spending.

A government is like a non-profit corporation.  The City has no personal profit motive-that is, no shareholders-and instead measures "accountability" instead of profitability.

The main purpose of this "accountability"-the guiding principle of governmental "Fund Accounting"-is to keep revenues and expenses separate from each other to insure the money is legally spent as the taxpayers intended it to be.  In a typical corporation or private business the owners or managers can move money around to create new projects or cover losses from one department with profits from another.  Governments on the other hand must separate-or segregate-money to insure that funds collected for one purpose is spent only on that purpose.  This is exactly what we are now facing.