rocky

Municipal Default Alert: Vallejo, California

A website put up by Vallejo residents before the last mayoral election in November 2007 had a list of firefighter salaries/overtime for 2006. All were over $100,000. The highest was about $379,000. #1 retired in 2007 and probably qualified for the maximum payout (3% credit for each year of service x 30 years of service = 90% of final year's compensation), or over $300,000 pension per year for life. That is surely the way to municipal bankruptcy. Many cities and counties in California and the State itself offer such a plan to public safety employees. Watch for library closings coming to a town near you. California's public employee pension law needs to be changed but I guess it will take a full blown financial crisis before the Democrats (who control both the Assembly and the Senate) have the guts to take on the public employee unions.