Watch Your Wallet Archives - Page 72 of 83 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

May 22, 2011May 23, 2011Setting The Bar Low

The Water District’s $571,400 Ethics Office

Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is spending $571,400 to fund their internal Ethics Office according to the approved 2011 budget.

cat-underwater — Sometimes you've got to ask yourself "why?"

According to the District’s website, the Ethics Office “helps maintain an ethical culture at Metropolitan by enforcement of ethics-related rules and laws; education for directors, officers and employees; and enhancement by promotion of the District’s six core values.” Are MWD employees so unethical that they need this office? Maybe, but they don’t seem to be doing a very good job of educating employees and board members. I vaguely recall an attempt 2 years ago to get a 25% retroactive pension spike.

That’s $571,400 to “help maintain an ethical culture”.

The funds pay for one Ph.D. and two others identified as an educator and an administrative liaison. With failed overhead like this, it is no wonder the MWD Operations & Maintenance budget projects an 18.4% increase in salary and benefit costs as well as a 23% increase in construction related costs and a 23% increase in Water System Operations!

It’s also no wonder why Fullerton’s water rates are anticipated to nearly double.

This Monday, May 23rd, the City will be holding a public meeting with an ad-hoc water rate committee in the City Council chambers at City Hall (303 W. Commonwealth) at 6:30PM. I encourage ALL Fullerton water users to attend. You will be given an opportunity to voice your concerns and let committee members know where you stand.

If you would like a copy of the Fullerton Water Rate Study Ad Hoc Committee Briefing, please email me at GregSebourn@yahoo.com and I will email it to you.

May 17, 2011May 20, 2011Home Town Hero

It Takes Courage To Say No

by admin26 Comments

A while back we did a post about the value of saying NO. Today let’s look at someone else who appreciated the importance of putting one’s foot down: the two-term President Grover Cleveland.

Back when Grover was the Governor of New York, he said “no” when Chatuatauqua County proposed to spend tax dollars for a soldiers monument. He said “no” to the Fredonia Library Association, which sought to be relieved of paying local taxes. He said “no” to the town of Elmira, which tried to avoid liability for personal injuries occurred by those traveling its unsafe streets and roads. He even said “no” to Fayetteville, his boyhood hometown, when they wanted to borrow money for the purchase of a new steam fire engine.

Cleveland kept his promise that he would be a guardian of the people’s interest, which meant guarding the keys to the people’s dinero.

Why is this relevant? Because saying “no” to police unions, fire unions, teachers, prison guards, custodians, bailout bankers, and subsidy-sucking union allies is often the right thing to do.

May 12, 2011May 11, 2011Education Uber Alles

Tax-Cheering Teachers Get Mad

by Travis17 Comments

In the midst of a teachers’ union protest for higher taxes the other day, we handed out a list of 585 Fullerton teachers and administrators who make over $90,000. Our camera captured their reaction:

This afternoon the teachers’ union will be at it again, this time on Harbor Blvd. in Downtown Fullerton. John and Ken will be there too, and so will FFFF.

I also heard that the teachers’ unions are planning some kind of “surprise” in response to the conservative radio duo. Come on down, it might be fun.

May 10, 2011May 12, 2011Downtown Fullerton

John and Ken Returning to Fullerton to Protest Teachers’ Union Tax Hikes

by Travis58 Comments

Political talk radio hosts John and Ken announced that they will be coming to Fullerton on Thursday to counter the demonstration for higher taxes put on by the Fullerton teachers’ unions.

Apparently they were egged on by the receipt of a flyer listing five hundred and eighty five Fullerton teachers and administrators who make a lot of money.

We have here a copy of that flyer:

View the teacher/administrator salaries

Update:

The raw data supporting this flyer is located here: Fullerton School District Salary Data and Fullerton Joint Union High School District Salary Data.

May 8, 2011Nationwide

Hey Royce, Rohrabacker Gets It, Now Get With The Program!

by admin15 Comments

April 27, 2011April 27, 2011Orange County Government

The Great Pension Debate: Greenhut vs. Berardino

by Travis50 Comments

Here’s a fun match up between pension watchdog Steven Greenhut and the head of the OCEA public employees’ union, Nick Berardino. The subject of yesterday’s debate was “Can pensions be reformed co-operatively?”

Who won?

April 17, 2011April 18, 2011About Us

Saying Goodbye To Alan Morton

by admin20 Comments

Allan Morton — WWII 457th Bomb Group B‐17 turret gunner

Molly McClannahan used to call Alan Morton “The Conscience of Fullerton.”

At some point back in the 1990’s, the city retained an expensive consultant to design a sign to be painted on the Union Pacific bridge (my idea) over Harbor Blvd. Alan voluntarily designed the “Welcome to Downtown Fullerton” sign on his home computer, saving the city thousands of dollars.

Alan would constantly question city staff’s wisdom of using legal size paper for staff reports instead of letter size, which is what they use today. Staff’s answer was that they had no choice because the file cabinets were designed for legal size paper.

One of my all time favorite council meetings (I’ll have to YouTube it someday) was when Alan chucked an illegally placed Sa For Council sign during the public comments and the sign almost hit Sa en la cabesa. You go Alan!

I believe it was the great recall that really got Alan energized as an activist. From there, it was off to the races for Alan. He continuously ragged on the council to televise council meetings, and now they are. He would speak on almost every important item on the council’s agenda. His activism helped save Fullerton taxpayers millions of dollars.

Recently, at the ripe age of 86, Alan was having breakfast with three of his buddies. While chatting with one of the servers, Alan took a deep breath and that was it for our feisty old Friend. Alan gave of himself and asked for nothing in return. People like Alan Morton are Fullerton’s Future.

Click here to read Alan’s Obituary

April 9, 2011May 16, 2011Education Uber Alles

432 More Teachers and Admins with Nothing To Complain About

by Travis110 Comments

Last week we looked at the number of FSD employees who make over $90k. Now let’s see the salaries of Fullerton Joint Union High School District teachers and administrators for the 2009-10 school year.

[iframe_loader width=”100%” height=”650″ frameborder = ‘0’ marginheight=’0′ marginwidth=’0′ click_words=” click_url=” scrolling=’auto’ src=’https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AiyL667gfsw9dHB5STJxdC1NXzlCeUVJY3E2REhueXc&single=true&gid=0&output=html&widget=true’]

Wow. Four hundred and thirty-two of them earn over $90,000 per year. Some of them teach a little extra summer school while others get stipends for CERT training, coaching badminton or being a leader. There’s also a secretary and a couple of custodian supervisors who earned over $60k in overtime alone.

You can look at this data any way you want, but it’s hard to deny that Fullerton’s educators are very well compensated. The myth of the “poor, underpaid teacher” is crushed.

Bonus Trivia

Which FFFF blogger spent several years molding the young minds of Fullerton’s high schoolers back in the 1980’s?

March 31, 2011March 31, 2011Don Bankhead

Who Does Don Bankhead Blame for Fullerton’s Pension Crisis?

by Travis15 Comments

The other day someone remarked that Don Bankhead has never accepted the blame for any of the bad votes he’s made since the beginning of his 23 year reign on the city council.

Twenty-three years at the helm…surely there must be at least one single thing that even the most narcissistic of government officials would accept partial blame for, right? Well, how about Fullerton’s pension crisis? Don Bankhead voted for every single pension and salary spike put in front of him over the last 23 years, and has done absolutely nothing to curb the excesses that have brought hundreds of millions in debt upon the shoulders of Fullerton Taxpayers.

Let’s see what he has to say for himself:

Who’s fault is it? Oh, it’s the stock market’s fault!

Nobody could have possibly predicted that stock investments carry an inherent risk, and that their value may not increase forever, and that by boosting these pension commitments, Bankhead was dumping ever-increasing chunks of risk onto future generations of Fullerton taxpayers. And of course the unions would never try to talk an unsuspecting buffoon into boosting their benefits at the very peak of a cycle, where smooth sailing into a rich eternity seems practically guaranteed.

Economic Cycle — Up and down? That theory is old fashioned.

Nope, none of this is evident to the dim bulb who went along with the biggest series of heists in Fullerton history. It’s all somebody else’s fault, and there’s nothing that he can do about it now.

Sadly, nobody has had the heart to tell Don Bankhead that the pain of nearly two hundred million dollars in pension debt will be shared by his very own children and grandchildren.

How’s that for a legacy?

March 30, 2011March 30, 2011Fullerton City Council

Some Numbers

by Travis68 Comments

It’s almost April. Our wise and courageous city council is already wading through wage negotiations with the city employee unions for the upcoming budget year. How did we get this far without adding up Fullerton’s total unfunded pension obligation? Oh well, here it goes…

Pension Plan	Total Liability	Market Value of Assets	Unfunded Liability
Fullerton Public Safety	$324,288,070	$197,444,920	$126,843,150
Fullerton Miscellaneous	$202,257,209	$136,167,010	$66,090,199

That’s a grand total of $192 million in what is essentially “pension debt” for which we have no foreseeable plan to pay, even when we include all of our future contributions and expected market gains.

The pension plans are already paying out $9 million more per year to retirees than they are taking in via contributions, so there’s no help there. But our required contributions are increasing significantly, starting this year.

With no perceivable way out of this hole, maybe it’s time to hit the road and put it all on black.

Las Vegas — I think I'm getting the fear.

All of these numbers came from the 2010 CalPERS reports for Fullerton’s Public Safety and Miscellaneous pension plans.