We didn't have anyone looking out for the taxpayers money...this can be repeated throughout the country. Tax more or spend more wisely?
Stockton, California, Police Chief Tom Morris was supposed to bring stability to law enforcement when he was appointed to the job four years ago.
He lasted eight months and left the now-bankrupt city at age 52 with an annual pension that pays more than $204,000 -- the third of four chiefs who stayed in the position for less than three years and retired with an average of 92 percent of their final salaries.
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Stockton, which filed for bankruptcy protection on June 28, is among dozens of California cities confronting rising pension costs even as they also contend with growing unemployment, foreclosures and declining property-tax revenue. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
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Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) – San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed talks with Bloomberg’s Alison Vekshin about the state’s pension costs. Bloomberg News compiled data from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System for more than a dozen cities facing the financial strains of rising pension costs and declining revenue. The data show how local governments struggle to support six-figure lifetime benefits for some retirees even as they cut police and fire services for current city residents. (Source: Bloomberg)
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Stockton, which filed for bankruptcy protection on June 28, is among dozens of California cities confronting rising pension costs even as they also contend with growing unemployment, foreclosures and declining property-tax revenue. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
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Stockton, which filed for bankruptcy protection on June 28, is among dozens of California cities confronting rising pension costs even as they also contend with growing unemployment, foreclosures and declining property-tax revenue. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Stockton, which filed for bankruptcy protection on June 28, is among California cities from the Mexican border to the San Francisco Bay confronting rising pension costs as they contend with growing unemployment and declining property- and sales-tax revenue. The pensions are the consequence of decisions made when stock markets were soaring, technology money flooded the state, and retirement funds were running surpluses.
“We didn’t have very many people looking out for the taxpayers when these deals were negotiated,” San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, 63, said in a telephone interview. San Jose, the state’s third-largest city, approved a ballot measure in June to contain annual retirement costs that soared to $245 million from $73 million in the past decade. |
