Snippets about Lake Tahoe
• El Dorado County sheriff’s Lt. Les Lovell graduated from the state’s command college this month.
Les Lovell
• Kings Beach’s Char Pit is taking over concessionaire responsibilities at Sand Harbor this summer.
• The Nevada Supreme Court recently appointed Chase International broker salesperson and consultant Michelle Plevel as a mediator to the Nevada Foreclosure Mediation Program.
• South Lake Tahoe employees are set to get a 5 percent raise on Oct. 1 based on union contracts. This would amount to $675,000. Things could change as both sides negotiate a deal.
• Mary Bennington of Gardnerville is now executive director of the Tahoe Rim Trail Association.
NICE! 5% raise! Way to go unions! Love how they continue to screw the taxpayers while strengthening their own base. Unless you work for the government, chances are you’re making less right now than you were a year ago.
Dogwoman,check this out.
. It appears Calpers has requested $600 million more in funding from the state government, completely disregarding that hours before Arnie was pressing legislators to cut the state’s pension costs as he realizes that California with its $20 billion budget deficit is pretty much completely insolvent. The development is driven largely by huge investment losses by the California Public Employees Retirement System, but also because people are living longer and retiring earlier.” Well Austerity will take care of the latter, as for the former, Dr. Kevorkian is, unfortunately, unavailable. The only winner out of this imminent fiasco: Leon Black, who as primary recipient of Calpers’ generous capital, still continues to mindlessly blow money on soon to be bankrupt companies, with the hope that he can extract at least something out of them, even if it means taking a 70% IPO haircut.
The increase would be for California’s next fiscal year, beginning in July, and would raise to about $3.9 billion the state’s annual contribution to the pension fund, known as Calpers, the biggest U.S. public pension fund. Schwarzenegger in unveiling on Friday his budget plan for the next fiscal year, said that overhauling the state’s pension systems to reduce their cost to the state’s general fund is a top priority, an idea backed by fellow Republicans in the legislature’s minority. Democrats, who control the legislature, are reluctant to take up the issue. Pubic employee unions allied with Democrats are concerned their members could be placed into a two-tier pension system in which new public employees would receive reduced benefits. The unions are also concerned their members would have to contribute more to their retirement plans. A Calpers spokesman said the fund’s request for additional state money follows a study presented to the fund’s board last month that forced new actuarial assumptions to account for longer life-spans. He said the request also takes into account declines in the value of fund investments along with a policy aimed at improving the retirement systems’ long-term funding.
Not only are city employees getting a COLA (cost of living adjustment), we have actually had a decrease in cost of living. The employees also have the best PERS packages available to gov’t employees.
Civil servants have become our masters.
Local, STPUD has the best package as the CalPers for the City is about 10% and STPUD is 15.5% with another 3% for misc both of which are paid for by the ratepayers which just guaranteed another 2% with the rate hike. I am sure i will get another call informing me I am wrong or misspoken but I am not.
The 5% raises are for Police and Fire they would not open contracts and take wage cuts. General employees are getting their third furlough day Oct 1st. Go to the city web site and read the Police and Fire MOU contracts.
Remember all this when the City cries poor and tries to get another tax increase or ‘revenue enhancement’ or whatever they’ll call it. Of course the City will say they’ll need it in order “to maintain vital services”.
Plus since I last commented on this, it’s still been true just about every day-drive from one end of town to the next and you’ll see that the Fire Dept. is overworked washing and rewashing their fire engines. And do we really need 5 or 6 police cars (not counting Sheriff or CHP!) patrolling between the Y and Stateline?
Good job reporting this LTN!!
Calpers costs are far higher than stated because the employees don’t pay any of the costs. people in non-government jobs pay social security. gov’t employees don’t pay that and they don’t pay their portion of calpers retirement either. between the employee’s costs and the city’s costs Calpers is closer to 18 to 20 percent of pay.
but public safety? they got raises all last year and their retirement calpers costs are about 25 percent of their pay and with other benefits its about 40 percent. for every dollar you pay a public safety person add 40 cents.
NO city employees should have a raise. not a single penny. that is ridiculous.
The so called COLAs were in place in the contracts before the furloughs and other cuts were initiated. Most all City employees have forfeited about a 10% pay salary this past year and will forfeit another 3.8% +- beginning October 1. In addition, most of the employees have also agreed to health share costs in order to help with the health care increases. All told, employees are at about a 20% pay cut in the name of helping to balance budgets. Of course, fire and police have chosen not to partake in the effort to help close the gap. Fire, Police & STPUD will all see positive increases in pay while most other blue collar employees continue to get the shaft and eventually layed off in the name of protecting essential services.
As for PERS. The numnuts in the State running the program have screwed up the investments so bad that PERS will soon match the multitude of failed 401k investments.
If the people don’t wake up to the new feudal society of might makes right, we will sink under the weight of public salaries and public pensions. The public employee unions bought off and control to many whorish legislators and I think I know of which political party they belong.
So called public safety unions are the worst when it comes to buying off politicians. How would you like to retire at 50 at 90% of your last years earnings, with the added enhancement of no taxes on your rated disability?
Froggy….Why not have Mercenaries take over the Fire,Police,Crapper Plant?
Might get better service for a cheaper price.
I bet there’s few here in town that could do just as good job for better price,love having a job.
Wah-Wah good idea, as a perk you also get to drive a sweet firetruck and hang out at starbucks or the car wash at fox gas.
Frog…….Saw in the real estate that the car wash is up for sale across from Ziggy burger spa……$910.000 for that.
TYPICAL TAHOE PRICE TAG FOR A DUMP.
GUESS THEY HAVE TO HANG OUT AT BLACK BEAR INN, CLOSER TO HOME IN CASE THE PHONE RINGS.
Never know when a controlled burn goes haywire again!
Hi Kae,
The comment in your blog below was brought to my attention. Thanks for alerting your readers to the issue of the need for employees to make sacrifices in order to save jobs. I am writing to offer a clarification.
Employee groups have multi-year contracts that provide for salary adjustments throughout the term of the contract. Not all groups are entitled to a 5% increase. It varies. All agreements except one will expire on September 30, 2011. In order to balance the budget for 2010-2011, we need to cut approximately $3.2 million or find revenue equivalents. We are hardening down the number this week.
The City Council is asking all employee groups to give up their scheduled salary increases in order to help to balance the 2010-2011 budget. I have been directed and am meeting with employee groups to see if they will agree to do so. Two labor groups have already agreed to give up scheduled increases, and I am proud of them. I am cautiously optimistic that all employee groups will give up COLAs to avoid layoffs. Either one or the other will happen. Even by giving up COLAs and using some reserve there is still a need to reduce overall cost of ongoing operations by approximately $1 million.
I have held employee briefings and have meetings scheduled with labor representatives this week and next week.
Hope this helps!
David Jinkens, City Manager
We’ll see if they do back off on those increases…
Whether they do or not, it’s a bad way of running the business and it’s only done by governments and unions. Regular people don’t get guarantees of more money at regular intervals. They have to produce more to earn more.
Mr. Jinkens, thanks for sharing that additional info.
Draw YOUR OWN CONCLUSION!
Your damn lucky to have a job.
#1) In what universe is an economy with 39.68 million Americans on food stamps considered to be a healthy, recovering economy? In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed 43 million Americans in 2011. Is a rapidly increasing number of Americans on food stamps a good sign or a bad sign for the economy?
#2) According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in the month of March. This was an increase of almost 19 percent from February, and it was the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report back in January 2005. So can you please explain again how the U.S. real estate market is getting better?
#3) The Mortgage Bankers Association just announced that more than 10 percent of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment in the January-March period. That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago. Do you think that is an indication that the U.S. housing market is recovering?
#4) How can the U.S. real estate market be considered healthy when, for the first time in modern history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together?
#5) With the U.S. Congress planning to quadruple oil taxes, what do you think that is going to do to the price of gasoline in the United States and how do you think that will affect the U.S. economy?
#6) Do you think that it is a good sign that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of the state of California, says that “terrible cuts” are urgently needed in order to avoid a complete financial disaster in his state?
#7) But it just isn’t California that is in trouble. Dozens of U.S. states are in such bad financial shape that they are getting ready for their biggest budget cuts in decades. What do you think all of those budget cuts will do to the economy?
#8) In March, the U.S. trade deficit widened to its highest level since December 2008. Month after month after month we buy much more from the rest of the world than they buy from us. Wealth is draining out of the United States at an unprecedented rate. So is the fact that the gigantic U.S. trade deficit is actually getting bigger a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?
#9) Considering the fact that the U.S. government is projected to have a 1.6 trillion dollar deficit in 2010, and considering the fact that if you went out and spent one dollar every single second it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend a trillion dollars, how can anyone in their right mind claim that the U.S. economy is getting healthier when we are getting into so much debt?
#10) The U.S. Treasury Department recently announced that the U.S. government suffered a wider-than-expected budget deficit of 82.69 billion dollars in April. So is the fact that the red ink of the U.S. government is actually worse than projected a good sign or a bad sign?
#11) According to one new report, the U.S. national debt will reach 100 percent of GDP by the year 2015. So is that a sign of economic recovery or of economic disaster?
#12) Monstrous amounts of oil continue to gush freely into the Gulf of Mexico, and analysts are already projecting that the seafood and tourism industries along the Gulf coast will be devastated for decades by this unprecedented environmental disaster. In light of those facts, how in the world can anyone project that the U.S. economy will soon be stronger than ever?
#13) The FDIC’s list of problem banks recently hit a 17-year high. Do you think that an increasing number of small banks failing is a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?
#14) The FDIC is backing 8,000 banks that have a total of $13 trillion in assets with a deposit insurance fund that is basically flat broke. So what do you think will happen if a significant number of small banks do start failing?
#15) Existing home sales in the United States jumped 7.6 percent in April. That is the good news. The bad news is that this increase only happened because the deadline to take advantage of the temporary home buyer tax credit (government bribe) was looming. So now that there is no more tax credit for home buyers, what will that do to home sales?
#16) Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently told the U.S. government that they are going to need even more bailout money. So what does it say about the U.S. economy when the two “pillars” of the U.S. mortgage industry are government-backed financial black holes that the U.S. government has to relentlessly pour money into?
#17) 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. Tens of millions of Americans find themselves just one lawsuit, one really bad traffic accident or one very serious illness away from financial ruin. With so many Americans living on the edge, how can you say that the economy is healthy?
#18) The mayor of Detroit says that the real unemployment rate in his city is somewhere around 50 percent. So can the U.S. really be experiencing an economic recovery when so many are still unemployed in one of America’s biggest cities?
#19) Gallup’s measure of underemployment hit 20.0% on March 15th. That was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year. Do you think that is a good trend or a bad trend?
#20) One new poll shows that 76 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is still in a recession. So are the vast majority of Americans just stupid or could we still actually be in a recession?
#21) The bottom 40 percent of those living in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth. So is Barack Obama’s mantra that “what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street” actually true?
#22) Richard Russell, the famous author of the Dow Theory Letters, says that Americans should sell anything they can sell in order to get liquid because of the economic trouble that is coming. Do you think that Richard Russell is delusional or could he possibly have a point?
#23) Defaults on apartment building mortgages held by U.S. banks climbed to a record 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010. In fact, that was almost twice the level of a year earlier. Does that look like a good trend to you?
#24) In March, the price of fresh and dried vegetables in the United States soared 49.3% – the most in 16 years. Is it a sign of a healthy economy when food prices are increasing so dramatically?
#25) 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 – a 32 percent increase over 2008. Not only that, more Americans filed for bankruptcy in March 2010 than during any month since U.S. bankruptcy law was tightened in October 2005. So shouldn’t we at least wait until the number of Americans filing for bankruptcy is not setting new all-time records before we even dare whisper the words “economic recovery”?
Share and Enjoy: