Politics, Government and Business in Southern California's Inland Empire
By Craig Gustafson
Jan. 11, 2013 – 5:02 p.m.
The city’s budget continues to get squeezed with news that the voter-mandated switch from pensions to 401(k)s has pushed San Diego’s annual pension payment to $275 million for the coming fiscal year, an increase of $44 million from a year ago.
Special Section: San Bernardino
The deterioration of San Bernardino’s public finances to the point where city officials are willing to declare bankruptcy could be the prologue to another fight over public employee benefits.
Pension costs are not the only source of San Bernardino’s financial ills. The city’s own financial analysis blames weak revenues, deficit spending and accounting errors for a $45 million deficit.
Government & Politics »
Written by
Michael Gardner
6:35 p.m., July 5, 2012
Updated 6:51 p.m.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown and the leader of the state Senate on Thursday said they will resist any legislative maneuvering to override voter-approved pension reforms in San Diego and San Jose.
“It’s not part of my pension plan and I strongly oppose it,” Brown said in a statement.
By Ed Mendel
Monday, April 11, 2012
Two California cities attracting national attention for big pension-reform votes look like they are on the same path — court filings last week to speed up legal decisions, and city council meetings this week to consider plans for new hires.
But the public pension reforms approved by 66.25 percent of voters in San Diego, the state’s second largest city, and by 69.58 percent of voters in San Jose, the third largest, are not the same and face different problems.
Wednesday, June 5, 2012 – 10:00 a.m.
In a blow to public employee labor unions, voters in San Diego and San Jose overwhelmingly passed pension reform measures designed to help stem their cities bleeding budgets.
By Ed Mendel
Monday, May 7, 2012
The mayors of San Jose and San Diego are backing local measures on the June ballot that aim to make the change critics of costly public pensions say is the key to major reform — cutting the cost of pensions earned by current workers in the future.
Using different methods, Measure B in San Jose and Proposition B in San Diego would allow current workers to keep pension amounts already earned, but pensions earned in the future could be cut or cost workers more.
By Ed Mendel
Monday, February 13, 2012
A drive to place a statewide public pension reform initiative on the November ballot ended last week, lacking funding like previous attempts. But major local pension reforms are expected to be on the June ballot in San Diego and San Jose.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
By Ed Mendel
As San Diego officials joined forces this week on an initiative to switch all new hires except police from pensions to 401(k)-style plans, Mayor Jerry Sanders said the city’s troubled pension system could become a “national model.”
By Ed Mendel
March 7, 2011
Los Angeles leads off Tuesday with a modest ballot measure aimed at curbing pension costs, which are threatening to take a big bite out of the budgets of California’s three major coastal cities.
The six say the city promised to cover their legal defense
By Kelly Thornton, Watchdog Institute
Friday, February 4, 2011 at 5:41 p.m.
The law
Governments can choose to cover legal fees for criminal prosecution of employees if the employee acted within the “scope of his employment,” “without malice,” in the “apparent interests of the public entity” and if “the public entity determines that such defense would be in the best interests of the public entity.”
20 tons of pot seized, eight arrested in San Diego and Tijuana.
By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times
November 27, 2010
Reporting from San Diego —
Federal authorities have unearthed another cross-border tunnel in a San Diego warehouse district, the second major tunnel discovery and multi-ton seizure of marijuana believed to be from Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel in a month.
Some have been demonized, but say retirement benefits weren’t their doing
By Danielle Cervantes, UNION-TRIBUNE
Lily Leung, STAFF WRITER
Jeff McDonald, UNION-TRIBUNE
Monday, August 23, 2010 at 12:06 a.m.
Sales-tax hike’s roots lie in pension increases: Key votes in 1996 and 2002 boosted top 20 pensions for San Diego city workers by 176 percent
By Joel Fox
Editor of Fox & Hounds and President of the Small Business Action Committee
Wed, July 7th, 2010
Despite Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s success in negotiating some concessions from state unions on the pension front, heated action in the battle for pension reform is happening in California’s cities.
Yesterday, initiative petition signatures were filed in San Francisco to require thousands of city employees to contribute 9% of their salaries towards their pensions and health care plans. Currently, many (but not all) contribute nothing. The initiative would also boost public safety workers contributions to 10% of salaries. Police and firefighters just saw their contributions increased to 9% by voters in the June election.
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