Save Taxpayer Dollars - Reduce Litigation
Having read through the City's 1,107 page 2016-2017 budget, and having seen multiple presentations by the City on the 2016-2017 proposed budget, it is clear to me that we will have an ongoing budget problem for years to come. The good news is that $30,000,000,000 in pension reform savings over the next 30 years in San Jose will make a huge impact on San Jose's ability to remain solvent. The bad news is that this was only achieved after losing one third of our public safety personnel and many other public servants to other municipalities and early retirement.
More important than the loss of headcount was the loss of trust by employees and the loss of a reputation for keeping our word. San Jose's once sterling reputation in many areas of public service has been damaged to the detriment of the people's safety and services. Hopefully no one will seek to argue that the vulnerability of the public has not been greatly increased at the worst possible time, and that the cause of this was a failure to never tire of the work it takes to reach agreement without posturing, ballot measures and in the end, very costly, and never ending litigation.
The good news is that those who had an original hand in the development of our current circumstances, eventually heard he complaints of their constituents, and sought to put an end of this sad chapter in San Jose's history. The bad news, is some of their old partners and backers of this failed experiment in how to negotiate with employees refuse to defer to the will of the City people who have been elected to represent the interests of the people of San Jose.
A billionaire, and former employee of the City of San Jose continue to seek to undo the agreement between the City and its employees that will save our taxpayers enormous sums of money over the next three decades. And, these people who are not even residents of San Jose are still trying to pedal this DoA method of pension reform to others. Once again, I hope that no one will challenge that this is at least one more example of the tangible cost of the influence of money in our politics. We quite simply must put an end to this, by making all of our City Hall candidates, ignore influential outsiders with agendas and run $0.00 campaigns.
In addition, and in relation to this, we must stop dumping all our issues at the City Attorney's office door. Whether it's pension reform, landfill contracts, baseball's antitrust exemptions, or anything else, we simply must learn to solve problems without so quickly seeking a legal resolution of issues, that all too often lead to litigation. Anyone who knows how to breathe, knows that litigation is expensive, makes everyone much more fearful to act boldly, and saps us of our vitality. The best way to see how expensive litigation can be is to look at the City’s link on Measure B litigation: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?NID=3182
Finally, I want to share that in a recent survey by the Value Advocacy Council, I was the only Candidate that responded "No" to the Question: "I believe that the City has enough revenue to fund services without any sales tax increase or the imposition of a parcel tax" Councilperson Khamis and all five other candidates across Districts 2, 6 & 8 answered "Yes," I am not surprised, because it's so easy to say what we all feel, which is that we surely can be more efficient in spending the people's money. But, to be real about this, I'd like all of the candidates who said yes to stand up and be counted for what they will cut first when we miss. I don't expect any takers on this, or expect to hear how this will actually work, but I think I know why Johnny and others say we don't need additional revenue to get the people’s work done.
The 2016-2017 budget allegedly includes full funding for almost 200 additional sworn officers, and yet there are nowhere near 200 cadets or eminent transfers from other municipalities in the pipeline. So, the question is this. Do we have a huge surplus coming in our budget, or are we not really able to support the open positions we have supposedly budgeted for fully? I’m not sure anyone knows for sure, but I do know that we are relying dangerously on forced overtime work, and that overtime pay chews up some of those dollars that would otherwise be going to new sworn officers, but overtime dollars are usually less than a benefits loaded payroll, so the math is still unclear. We also should all realize that we are playing with fire to continue month after month to rely on forced overtime for our public safety personnel.
Finally, and on the subject of the VAC survey, any incumbent Councilperson has to know that the portion of funding for services that comes from sales taxes is cratering due to the increased number of people who buy their products they previously bought at San Jose retail stores, via the Internet. So, it feels disingenuous for any of them to say that we have sufficient revenue to fund all our critical services when so much from public safety to roads, etc. is nowhere near where it needs to be, and simply isn't going to bet fixed without adequate funding.