Editorial: Labor bill bad for counties, taxpayers and residents
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the Aug. 24, 2017, Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
Even after eight years of economic expansion, California counties continue to struggle to keep budgets in check under the growing strain of retirement and medical costs for public employees. But that problem would grow substantially worse under a contemptuous bill now working its way through the halls of the state Legislature.
Assembly Bill 1250 by Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, would severely limit the ability of counties to contract with community-based organizations, nonprofits and other groups to provide homeless shelters, mental health care and other services that local governments are not set up to provide on their own.
Why? The intent is clear. This bill, supported by public employee unions, would essentially force counties to use only public employees to deliver services. It would raise costs or, worse, force governments to give up on providing some needed services.