Is there a doctor in the house?

If you have watched either of the last two council meetings, you may have noticed the absence of our resident physician and mayor, Dick Jones, from the dais.  No word from City Hall on his condition or location.

Overkill of the Overtime

Doubling wages with overtime has lead at least one firefighter to earn more than $138,000 for doing a job that is capped at $69,253. 

The police and fire personel are the core of the overtime in Fullerton.  Of those fire personel earning more than their maximum salary, the average overage was 38.45%.  The police did a little better with an average overage in maximum salaries of 20.2%.  In all, taxpayers are paying almost $6.2 million in wages that are above and beyond what the established maximum salary. 

Everyone understands that emergencies will keep first responders on the job beyond their regular shift, however their time should be carefully managed. 

Last year a small plane ran out of runway and hit the chainlink fence at Fullerton Airport. The pilot was uninjured and was able to walk away. But that didn't stop about 20 firefighters from responding to the minor collision.  My guess is that not all of the fire companies arrived at the same time.  That begs the question why didn't the first unit on the scene call off the extra emergency workers? 

Here comes the cry and outrage for me even bringing up the issue of pay and overtime for first responders.  How dare I even think of touching this sensitive subject!   

The bottom line is that too many people are collecting too much overtime.  This is purely a management issue or rather a mismanagement issue.  There is no municipal job in which any employee should have the opportunity to DOUBLE their salary through overtime.

Below are those who took home a lot more than the maximum salary.  They are ranked based on their percentage of wages earned beyond thei salary cap.  These are just the ones in the 40th percentile and up.  In all, more than 500 different city employees took home money beyond their salary caps.  Even a council member made the list.  I can't imagine who that might be.

Controller Releases More Local Government Payroll Figures

Controller Releases More Local Government Payroll Figures

PR11:04
2/1/2011

Contact: Hallye Jordan
916-445-2636

SACRAMENTO – State Controller John Chiang today unveiled an updated website showing the salary, pension benefits and other employee compensation for several hundred local transit, waste disposal, and fire and police protection districts.
“Californians were offered instant access to salary information in their own communities when I launched the first public payroll site of city and county compensation last fall,” said Chiang. “Posting this information allows California residents to see where their public dollars are being spent and to better hold their local agencies accountable.”
Last October, the Controller collected and posted wage information for more than 600,000 city and county employees. He then ordered special districts across the state to report the same information.
Compensation information for employees of special districts is being collected and posted on the website in four phases. The first phase – launched today – includes more than $3 billion in payroll reported by 693 local agencies. The next phase will include land reclamation and levee maintenance, health, hospital and water agencies.
The Local Government Compensation Reporting website covers elected officials as well as public employees. It includes the following information for each position:

·       Minimum and maximum salary ranges;

·       Actual wages paid;

·       The applicable retirement formula;

·       Any contributions by the employer to the employee’s share of pension costs;

·       Any contributions by the employer to the employee’s deferred compensation plan; and

·       Any employer payments for the employee’s health, vision and dental premium benefits.

In addition, the website shows employees who hold multiple positions within a single local government. Postings are updated weekly with any new information received.
Eighty percent of all special districts in the first phase successfully followed the new reporting requirements. A list of agencies that failed to file in time for today’s launch can also be found on his website. Each non-complying agency could face a penalty of $5,000. The Controller anticipates completing the website with all special district information, along with compensation for state employees, in June of 2011.

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Higher taxes and More Redevelopment

It isn’t often that I read the letters to the editor in the Orange County Register, much less get irritated enough to comment on them.  However, today is a two-for. 

The first letter, written by Mary Kidwell of La Habra sees fit to bash the Tea Party.  No harm there, everyone has an opinion about the Tea Party, but her letter asks the following:

“I feel I paid my fair share for all that we received. What did you pay? If you are middle class, I highly doubt that you paid more than 7 percent.”

Well Mary, I am in that middle class you mention and I give well over 20% of my income to the State and Uncle Sam.  If you include excise taxes and those “fees” at the DMV and gas pump, I give more than 50% of my hard-earned money to the government.  Based on what you and I are paying in taxes, it looks like one of two things has happened:

A) You are paying too little for the services you enjoy, or B) I am paying too much for the services you enjoy.  Either way you slice it, I’m paying the difference so that you can enjoy those government services. 

Mary also contends that “It’s also just a little ridiculous that most seen at Tea Party rallies are obviously Social Security and Medicare recipients.” I’ll be 38 in a few days and I am OBVIOUSLY NOT receiving Social Security or Medicare.  So far, Mary’s stereotype of Tea Party supporters (anti-tax abuse advocates) doesn’t seem to pan out. 

I encourage anyone who would like to pay more in taxes to go ahead and send a donation to your government agency of choice.  Give them as much as you like, I’m sure they won’t mind. 

For the rest of us who feel we pay too much and actually do, be sure to elect leaders who won’t give away the company store.

One other letter to the editor got me fired up.  The owner of Renick Cadillac and Subaru, Leonard M. Renick, seems to think it is OK to spend taxpayer’s money on corporate welfare.  I suppose if I was in the business of trying to sell Cadillac’s and Subaru’s in Fullerton I might want a taxpayer-funded bailout too. 

Renick says, “It is not enough that [Norby's] influence as an elected official of Fullerton has left the city in a permanent state of dowdiness while Brea is a shining light of newness and economic vitality thanks to redevelopment?” 

He must be thinking of Mayor Pro Tem Don Bankhead.  During Bankhead’s 22 years on the dais Fullerton has gone from bad to worse.  Norby hasn’t been on the Fullerton City Council for the past 8 years to oppose any Fullerton Redevelopment Agency boondoggles.  And in those 8 years all of Bankhead’s redevelopment money has done nothing for the roads and sidewalks of north or west Fullerton.

Also worth pointing out is that Brea receives a large portion of their tax revenue from their industrial parks and their retail mall.  Couple that with the simple fact that Brea has a very small population base and you see how Brea manages to get by.

But the best quote is saved for last.  “Now, Norby throws in with Gov. Jerry Brown to strip cities of their ability to decide locally what would improve the local scene/economy and send the money to Sacramento so that Jerry Brown can buy more teacher and police union votes. Redevelopment is not perfect but local control beats the alternative.”

Mr. Renick didn’t get the memo that RDAs can not spend it wherever they want on whatever they want.  The funds are legally encumbered by welfare projects and not the corporate type of welfare either.  The worse part is that the RDA can borrow against the future tax revenues without voter approval.  The Fullerton Redevelopment agency borrowed $29-million to meet their low-income housing funding requirements because they had already spent too much on other non-housing projects.  

It doesn’t take a highly educated person to recognize that using tax revenue to prop up car dealers or any other business is just wrong. 

Government exists to provide for the people that which the people cannot provide for themselves.  It does not exist to bail out businesses or operate slush funds for the politically well connected.