It didn't get much attention on the East Coast, but in late February the town of Vallejo, California, came within an eyelash of becoming the first city since Bridgeport, Connecticut, back in 1991 to declare bankruptcy. This San Francisco Bay suburb of 120,000 residents was threatening to take this radical step because it can no longer afford to pay the extravagant salary and retirement benefits of its public employees. Just a few hours before the city council was to file for bankruptcy, the unions caved in and granted wage concessions to keep the city operational.
There are several other cities in California that are contemplating the bankruptcy option thanks to multi-billion-dollar public employee pension and health care obligations that have become effectively unpayable. "Vallejo's fiscal problems aren't unique. They're just the tip of the debt iceberg here in California," says Keith Richman, a former state legislator and now president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility (CFFR). The California Public Employees' Retirement System has $26 billion of unfunded liabilities. The teachers' retirement system is $20 billion in the red--health benefits add another $48 billion to its shortfall.
Welcome to the next great financial bubble in America--a fiscal time bomb that could cause your local and state tax bills to double or even triple in years to come.
Vallejo's story of financial woe raises eyebrows because it is not a desperately poor or dilapidated city like Newark or Detroit. It is quintessential middle-class America, with an average family income of about $57,000.
When the city announced it wouldn't be able to meet $6 million of unpaid bills starting in April, no one was as surprised as the residents themselves. Part of the problem is that the real estate crisis is especially pronounced in California and, as housing values fall, so do city property tax collections. The city projects a $20 million budget shortfall this year and next, which is a big bucket of red ink out of an annual budget of $80 million. City officials saw bankruptcy as the only legal option to void its unsustainable wage and retirement labor contracts and their $135 million of unfunded liabilities.
These contracts are so exorbitant that some of the richest residents of Vallejo are the police and firemen. Ten firemen earned more than $200,000 last year with overtime--a salary nearly four times higher than what the average family in Vallejo earns. Incredibly, 80 percent of the city's budget is consumed by labor and pension costs. "No city or private person wants to declare bankruptcy," says Councilwoman Stephanie Gomes, "but if you're facing insolvency, you have no choice but to seek protection."
Soaring public employee pension costs are crunching municipal budgets and causing service cuts or tax hikes across the state. In the Los Angeles County school system, health, pension, and workers compensation liabilities are so mountainous that an estimated one of every three dollars budgeted for the L.A. schools goes to teacher retirement costs. "The three Rs in the L.A. County school system are now reading, writing, and retirement," moans Richman.
|
