When the obituary is written someday in bankruptcy court for the City of L.A., the cause of death will be described as suicide by a thousand pay raises.
For the No. 1 reason, L.A. is a city that doesn't work for the people is the runaway cost of salaries and benefits for City Hall and its nearly 50,000 employees.
Beth Barrett in the Daily News on Sunday nailed the runaway costs of the city's payroll and put up online in a searchable database the name, job title and salary of every employee.
It's enough to make you sick. Or better yet get mad as hell and ready to do something about it. The editorial accompanying the story said: "Don't just be outraged; act on it. Armed with the information from this series, Angelenos ought to demand that their elected officials begin to correct imbalance of power."
This is a city that has overspent by $500 million even as revenue was soaring in recent years and is now jacking up garbage fees, water and power rates, library and parking fines, golf and recreation fees, you name it. Even as services to the public are being cut.
Get this: City painters earn up $70,000 a year, almost twice what the private sector pays; plumbers as much as $79,000 vs $47,000 outside the city; even the city's batallion of lawyers earn more than those in private practice.
They are paid far more than their counterparts in New York or Chicago. There are more than 6,000 city workers making six-figure incomes, nearly half make more than $70,000 a year.
The mayor alone has 24 staff members making more than $100,000 and City Council members -- themselves paid the ridiculous sum of $180,000 for doing next to nothing -- have 36 staff members paid more than $100.000.
The outrage doesn't stop with salaries that are soaring far faster than revenue or inflation.
City employees earn pensions of up to 90 percent of their salary with most of them able to retire in comfort with pensions of 60 to 75 percent of their salary and get lifetime health care. How does that compare to your Social Security and Medicare benefits?
Is it any wonder that city employee unions "own" nearly every elected official and spend heavily and work hard to get them elected. In fact, when the politicians talk about public service what they really mean is serving the public employees unions.
If these people had any conscience at all, they would scrap the mayor's budget plan and put the proverbial gun to the union bosses heads.
And that isn't layoffs which only mean even poorer public service. It means privatization of all functions that can be done cheaper and better by private companies, everything from garbage collection to accounting.
But that isn't going to happen unless we all start doing something about the first step is to call, write or email them. Council contacts are available at http://www.lacity.org/council.htm and the mayor at http://www.lacity.org/mayor/myrwm.htm.
But it's how we organize and become a political force stronger than the unions and the other special interests that will turn the tide and bring responsible government to L.A.
Many groups already are beginning to formulate plans to work together for the common good with a common agenda. The time to act is now.
For those out in the Valley, there is chance to let Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa know what you think of his tax and squander budget by attending the Valley Vote meeting Monday night where he's scheduled to speak at 7:30 p.m. at Galpin Ford -2nd Floor Meeting Room,15555 Roscoe Blvd. just east of 405 exit.
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the Naitonal Enquirer.
Great editorial in the DN!!! Unfortunately, I have been 'mad as hell' for the past few years...because I made it my business to investigate (on a small scale) the corruption, waste, and fraud that is being committed by the thieves who are running this city. It has, of course, escalated to great heights since Villar took office!
I disagree, however, with your assertion that LA will someday end up in bankruptcy court. As long as the apathetic citizenry keeps bending over, they will be taxed into oblivion. As long as they stay un-informed, they will continue to be screwed. As long as we continue to have the lowest voter turn-out in history, we will never clean up this city. Do you realize Villar is sitting in the mayor's office because he only received something like 289,000 votes???? NO ONE CARED!!!
The billion dollar question is: how do we get the corrupt politics of Mexico out of our government? They have built up an army of 2M illegals in LA! They have squandered our money and destroyed the city with illegals. They have ruined our schools and made our ER rooms impossible to access. They have taken over LA!
How do you propose to reverse something that has taken 30 years to accomplish??? The Reconquista is complete!
I read the DN article yesterday and Beth Barrett did an excellent job of writing a story that's, let's face it, "not sexy" in media terms; is eye-crossing and mind-boggling to put all the facts, figures and percentages down in a way that doesn't put the reader off.
They were wrong about one thing. The link they have to look up positions and salaries is not "easy" to use. First, they use a lot of abbreviations in job discriptions, and even if they were spelled out, it would be difficult to figure out what the job titles really mean. Government-speak and all that good stuff.
I was trying to find was the salary range for trash truck drivers, which remains a mystery.
Those salaries will never come down, because nobody ever voluntarily give up income. I doubt that all City salaries will be frozen for five years either.
If they were smart enough to con us into electing them, and to keep re-electing them, they better concoct a way of getting us out of this financial mess without laying in off on the tax payers.
From reading letters to the editor and my own email, I'm getting the feeling that people are revolted by the city's financial mess and ready to revolt one way or another if we're taxed, fee'd or fined one more cent.
Just knowing that everyone one of them from the mayor on down were repeatedly warned that L.A.'s ecomomy and housing market were going to tank, yet they continued to spend, spend, spend is reason enough to impeach the entire bunch en masse.
Illegals cost the city of LA over 1 billion annually, LA is over 550 million in debt, HMMM, you do the math.
Trash collectors average $60K a year.
Thanks, Anonymous.
Average $60K a year to drive a trash truck, and they don't even have to get out of their trucks any longer; just sit there and push levers. Their workload is reduced, their salaries should be, too.
Yes, they may just push buttons from their trucks, but they have to work long hours and there is more than just button-pushing involved. They have to come 5 days a week and they only take off 1-2 major holidays. And they do it with less man hours than any other department. They don't need no stinkin' overtime.
If the postal workers wasn't Federal, would you begrudge them their salaries?
Why would you take a $60K a year job and start there to salary-bash? That is about one of the smallest salaries in City Hall. How about some of the field deputies who make well over $100K and get cars? Inherently wrong on our money.