It took dedication for all these people to stand outside in the rain like this, not that I think stuff like this does much good, especially with this particular legislator. It's a big waste of time to expect him to change his spots now.

There is absolutely no way to preserve a large portion of California's school system with No New Taxes. The only question at this state is who is gonna get taxed, and the Stricklands know it.

The scam of the No New Taxes cabal is that while they're saving the middle class a few dollars in tax increases with one hand they're ripping us off for much much more with the other, by eliminating services (like schools) that are extremely costly to replace. This is a shell game. It allows huge corporate interests and pockets of wealth to avoid paying a fair share.

Every time a school closes in Ventura County we should send a big thank you to Audra and Tony Strickland, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Association, and all the out of county corporate contributors that helped make Big Tony's dream a reality.

"...and I promise...I WILL bring CHANGE to America!"

This is all such a joke. I see the beat goes on in California, also.

J King

Who, "Sick and Tired", are the " out of county corporate contributors that helped make Big Tony'e dream a reality"?

What about the "out of county" corporate and otherwise contributors for both ? What role did her husband, the Santa Barbara judge, play ? I found her campaigning as a lib candidate on KHAY kind of amusing.

Yesterday's paper reported that both Tony and Hannah-Beth each raised in the neighborhood of $4,500,000.00 each - so the same question could be asked of both.

Hannah-Beth had far fewer corporate contributions and did not accept money from oil, tobacco and insurance interests. Much more of her contributions came from in the district.

What role did her husband play? He was a loyal spouse and supporter and nothing else. He wasn't even on the campaign trail with her that often. I'm not sure what you could possibly be referring to. He is an honest, upstanding, highly ethical, well-liked member of the community.

This is getting really old. Blaming the Strickland's for this school budget crisis is a total sham. The Democrats have been in power in California for so many years and have done nothing but increase spending while our children's grades go down. Now we have ideological teachers and administrators sending a pink letter home with grade school children crying wolf about how horrible it will be, no buses, no child care, 10 more kids per class. The people who caused this are the same people you support, people like Hannah Beth Jackson. This is getting so out of hand. If you want a fix Marie, why don't you go after the ones really causing these problems. First start with the politicians who are in bed with the Unions. The Unions cost taxpayers millions upon millions just in litigation and court fees yearly. They get bloated salaries for administrators that do next to nothing, and the ones that do are not much better. These Unions are screwing our teachers over left and right and no one sees this??? Our schooling programs are a joke, children are not learning what they really need to learn. We now have teachers teaching false history on ideological lines. We need to get back to the basics. Get these people out of the way, get teachers to break the Union so it can never return and allow the taxpayers to say what goes! The projects that are put in place are bloated beyond belief. We all need to look at this and ask the TRUTH about who is doing what. You want someone to blame, blame yourselves for voting in the most incompetent people around. Stop voting on party lines, get our kids back to learning civics, math, reading and writing. This would actually cost a lot less if it was done properly. There are states that have less money and the same amount of children, they are making it and the kids are getting better grades than states like ours who have enormous budgets. Our system is so very flawed it needs to be completely destroyed and rebuilt. I have 3 children in 3 different schools (grade, middle and high) and Im telling you, after nearly 11 years watching my kids go through school, more funding, record amounts being spent, the schooling is worse now than it was 6 years ago, even 3 years ago. I just have no sympathy for it anymore. I would like teachers to have good compensation, I would like schools to have the best available technologies for our kids, almost everyone does but pointing fingers just makes it worse and never gets to the real problem. Cuts need to be made and I think the Union should be the first to go, then the legislators, then the low performing teachers and administrators. Let get realistic here, this problem will not get solved by passing a budget or raising taxes. It would be cheaper for us taxpayers to put every California child in private schools. Schools would open and compete for our business. Even if we received school vouchers! If our school system was run like a good company, we wouldn't be having these problems, but our "CEO's" are incompetent Politicians with ideological views and it is not going to get better by giving them more money. Our Political system and school system in California reminds me of what just happened in Wall Street.

I'm a Republican and am apppalled with the actions of both Republican and Democrat lawmakers in Sac. And I am mortified that all three Republican lawmakers didn't meet with the education leaders nor even send a representative from the their local office. Tony Strickland deserves this public embarassment!!!

OK. The guy won with only 857 votes. One would think that Strickland would see that the voters wanted a moderate who would work with other legislators to really help find solutions to the budget downfall. If you listened to his TV or got his many mailings he was a moderate, a concerned father and community member who is an environmentalist and business owner. Clearly, none of this is true and he is (and always was) out of touch with voters and the community. Refusing to meet with local school officials and elected representatives to help solve the budget problem is wrong.

Helen, you know you and I are polar opposites when you look at our political ideology but I have to agree with your post 100%. I applauded Peg Buckles for doing what right and organizing this protest. It was shameful behavior by our representative.

JMR, I am not blaming the Stricklands for the lack of education funding in the past. I, like many others, are calling them out on their current actions to hold up the budget. They also support a Republican version of a budget which cuts more than the governor wants from education.

They are rigid, no-compromise ideologues.

Here's what the San Jose Mercury News had to say:

"The governor and all 120 legislators share responsibility for this. But most of the blame for the immediate crisis falls on Republicans in the Legislature, who this past summer — to a person — signed a pledge to not raise taxes. That was before an already large deficit mushroomed, making the need for more revenue imperative. Since then, Democrats and the Republican governor have offered significant compromise, but GOP lawmakers cling to ideological purity — schools, health care and other essential responsibilities be damned.

Suppose a Democrat legislator had signed a "no education cuts" pledge and vowed not to deviate from that pledge. Suppose that legislator had campaigned and got elected without deviating from that position.

Would the no-compromise ideologue label be applied?

Or, is it only Republicans who believe paying the highest taxes in the nation with a multi-billion dollar deficit to show for it that are "extreme"?

People need to remember That 66% of the Stricklands Campaign Contributions came from Insurance,Oil and Tobacco companies as well as from wealthy donors outside of their districts. Hannah-Beth received 62% of her funding from people within the 19th State Senate District. When you get 66% of your funding from outside the district you are running in who do you really represent?

Marie: They are all clinging to ideological lines (more so the democrats) and I agree it needs to be fixed but I also agree that cuts need to be made, taxes need to be cut and our school system needs an overhaul completely. I agree with what a few of the republicans are doing to a point. We should not be raising taxes, we should be making cuts across the board. The democrats are no different and I see them as the main problem. I dont care about Strickland's donors one bit, it doesnt matter they all have questionable campaign financing. I know you support democrats and I continually see attacks on one person, start going after the main problem and the people causing it. The teachers Union, districts etc had no love for Strickland and consistently attack them. Go after the main problems. I also dont think people care too much about our Governors ideas, he hasn't done much either and I dont support him. Plain simple truth and fact, we cannot raise taxes just to get a budget passed, the democrats refuse to pass it without them in there, the republicans refuse to pass it with the taxes in there. We pay enough as it is, its time for some responsibility. Our school system is suffering because of the lack of restraint and taxing us again is only going to lead to more taxes in the future when they balloon the budget. Your argument goes both ways, stop throwing it one way. Im not ready to pass judgment on the Strickland's, I agree with the no new taxes, but Im glad we have him and not Hannah Beth, we would be in a world of hurt TAX wise in this state if she had won. I am for good education, I am for better salaries for our teachers, Im for all of that but not at the expense of people who can barely survive as it is. The government is the problem, the Union is the problem, and I dont know much about Tony Strickland, but I agree with him on this budget issue. Now if he steps out of line, I will come in here and blog with you about it but as of now Im not going to throw mud over finances for campaigns, Hannah and Tony threw enough mud during the election to last a whole cycle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Tony Strickland raised millions of dollars and took money from oil and tobacco companies. So what? Hannah Beth Jackson raised millions of dollars and took money from unions and trial lawyers. Sounds like pretty much every election that features a republican against a democrat. Folks, the election is over so you just need to get over it. I'm sick and tired of the endless partisan bickering. None of it will solve any of the problems we face.

And to be clear, both democrats and republicans are at fault here. Demonizing and blaming one side is not only ignorant, it is also counter productive. I also find it in poor taste to use young children as props at a political rally. We are facing some serious issues and to arrive at a solution we need to move beyond cheap political stunts.

Are both sides compromising, Bubba? One side has; one side hasn't. It's pretty simple. Do you really think Democrats want to lay off teachers and cut back on social services right now? Yet, they've agreed to do this.

Do you really think Schwarzenegger wants to raise taxes? Compromise.

I've been to lots of education rallies. I've planned them myself through a group called Save Our Schools. One drew hundreds to the government center in 2005. Jack O'Connell spoke.

I did another one last spring, also with a great turnout. Kids are always at these events. Whose future is being compromised with education cuts?

My thoughts on the budget right now are that we should furlough our legislators instead and let the Legislative Analyst's Office make the decisions. They propose reforms, cuts, revenue measures and rolling back special-interest tax credits.

Marie, I agree somewhat to that, if they cant get the job done, we should hold them accountable and stop their pay! I would like to see the Party Line thing that is going on cut and to have people like you to start supporting candidates that actually have good ideas even if they are in another party. Tom McClintock would have done a much better job than any candidate for governor at the time, I was never impressed with our current governor. He was chosen because of his star power over a person who has proven he could get things to work. We all need to wake up and start putting the best people in the best positions. Do you think if they had to get these positions as paid jobs, they would work this way? Its time to get rid of the old timers in congress and the senate and start getting people in there that can do the right thing regardless of party. If they were employed by us as an employee our legislature would actually get things done because they could lose their job if they didnt.

Roll back special interest tax breaks?? Im sorry but our state is so overtaxed its not funny. My wife does Payroll and Human Resources and the new taxes on average people are disgusting, every year they go up! Then you have the corporate taxes out of hand. If California really wants to fix the budget, get more money in, they should gut the taxes for everyone, increase business growth and go through the school budgets and get rid of the Unions. These Unions are not even needed any longer, we have strict employment laws on the books now. They are obsolete! They practically steal our tax dollars from our childrens schools and you are sticking up for them?

Its right also, Hannah Beth Received loads of money from the Unions, who do you think paid the Unions to be able to afford those donations? Ca Taxpayers did, Union Dues did, so if we want to go that route, hit them both. I dont like Unions taking money from our teachers, I think its wrong, its another tax for a corrupt body. Teachers could probably get their salaries doubled if the unions werent involved with their employment and we would have more money for the schools as well.

My only issue with you Marie is the party line thing, if you could get past that, you would have a much better argument and I would probably agree with a lot of what you say. I have 3 kids in school and Im getting very concerned. I told my 15 year old daughter that she needs to pay attention to these issues because if our taxes are raised again, she will have a hard time surviving without us, her parents when shes an adult. That means tons of kids her age will be affected really, really soon and it saddens me.

Blaming Phony Tony and his worse half for the budget crisis doesn't make sense. The problem is spending and not knowing how to say no. Until government says no and cares about people and their hard earned dollars, California is going into the ocean. Fewer and fewer people are paying into the Franchise Tax Board and more and more people are living off the government in California. Small businesses pay through the nose and government workers at all levels demand more pay and more benefits every year. Until government cuts its labor force by 20%, tighens loopholes in workers compensation, takes on the demands of Unions and taxes gambling, oil and tobacco, California will not be able to save its sorry self. To start, the legislators should have salary, benefits and per diem cut by 50% immediately. How can we raise our taxes when the Stricklands are making nearly $400,000 per year?

CAP-643:

We already pay the highest tobacco and Oil taxes in the country,. The higher oil tax is hurting middle and lower class people by raising the cost at the pump. The oil industry is one of the worst revenue creating business types in this country, the only reason they make a big profit is because of high demand. They make 10-15 cents on every dollar invested. I do not know of any other type of company that could sustain that. They make Huge profits because of demand, not from being greedy. They are also the biggest contributors to ecological and environmental funding but you never hear that on prime time. Tobacco is taxed so much its an outrage. Now the federal government just raised it another 62 cents per pack. Its overboard. We cannot tax ourselves out of a problem. We cannot go after these so called evil industries and tax them out of business. Enough is enough. I agree on the cuts though. Small business, large business and payroll taxes need to come down across the board. These politicians always talk about equal rights, but when it comes to equal taxing, that ideology goes right out the window.

I attended the cold, rainy rally with a lot of teachers and friends of education. Tony & Audra Strickland do not support public schools. They are tone-deaf to our call to pass the budget. Since they get most of their funding from big tobacco, insurance companies & oil, that should give you a big hint as to where their loyalties are.

I believe that we should be paying our legislators and their staff with IOU's and taking away their perks until this budget is passed. The Stricklands are both opportunists looking to suck off the public, looking out for their own interests - not the consituents of their districs.
Can anyone say RECALL?

Sandy

Again, we are at the name calling and they dont support public schools. I doubt that is the truth, and his donations for his campaign are not much different than Hannah Beth taking Union money, which is a special interest group inside of itself.

I do not want the budget to pass if they increase taxes and cant cut out a bunch of things that we dont need, so I support him for that and everyone else should also. We cannot just pass another giveaway budget just because of the schools. We have a bigger issue here. If we get it passed, the schools get their funding and we get our tax hikes, what happens to our children when the graduate and cant even afford to live here? Its more than school funding, its about the future of things to come and you need to look at the whole picture. This is fear mongering. Just like I stated about the pink letter sent home with my 9 year old, it read as if the sky was falling. Im beginning to believe people are just so brainwashed they cant see the truth in front of them any longer. The democrats as well as republicans in this state have screwed us over for years, its time we go after all of them.

This big oil, big tobacco argument doesnt go anywhere because your side has just as many demons and probably more in the closet. Democrats get so much Union and Abortion funds for their campaigns and most of that money came out of our pockets in the first place. Wake up and stop sticking up for the people who have contributed to this problem. Start reading the legislation and government spending yourself and you will see the problem clearly if you can get this partisan frame of mind out of the way.

JMR, it might surprise you to know that I was a Republican for a long time. I switched parties when Newt Gingich took over in 1994. I am still very conservative about a few things that my more liberal friends razz me about.

The state Republicans made this a partisan battle when all but one signed that "no tax pledge" and threatened to end the political careers of anyone who compromised.

I believe in compromise. I have been very clear in my posts here. Unions should compromise, users of public services should compromise and, yes, taxpayers should compromise.

JMR Says:
"If California really wants to fix the budget, get more money in, they should gut the taxes for everyone, increase business growth"
and
"what happens to our children when the graduate and cant even afford to live here?"

Here's a contrarian view.....
Do we really need more people here in California?
We already have a shortage of affordable housing.
We have a shortage of water. We apparently have a shortage of jobs. We have an abundance of traffic.

Here's an idea. Tax the crap out of us and those who can't afford to live here will leave making traffic problems go away. The housing problem goes away. Water problems go away. And those of us left get to really live in paradise.

It's a Win - Win!

Marie, We have compromised, over and over and over again and all they do is increase entitlement spending, bloat budgets and fix nothing. They have raised taxes on low, middle and upper class every year for the past few years. My wife gets to deal with that when cutting checks. We the taxpayer should no longer compromise, we already have the highest tax in the country, on just about everything and adding more taxes is going to make it worse, not better. Companies are leaving because of this. Kinkos moved to Texas because of the tax rates and operational costs here. How much money do you think Ventura County lost in Revenue because of that?? A LOT! What other large companies are going to move? Ive noticed quite a few moving offices into other states, more than likely to move their headquarters there. If this happens more and more every year, we can kiss our school budgets goodbye. There should be no compromising about taxes, the only thing they should be compromising on is entitlement, wasteful spending, Union Litigation Costs, lawyers fees, cell phones, car allowances etc. etc. That is what needs to be dealt with, not taxes. This is why they are at a stalemate, the democrats do not want to cut any of this stuff and I guarantee you this, if it came down to cutting school funding or an entitlement program, the dems will cut the school stuff first. There are tons of things that could be cut to fix this situation but they wont budge!

As far as Unions go, they just need to go away, there is no longer a use for them considering we have laws protecting workers now. The unions were created because of lack of employment laws back in the day. It was a Union for Good back then. Now we have the laws on the books. Politicians are now involved with these unions and get kickbacks even though they have created our own state laws and made the union obsolete. They wont concede anything unless we file for bankruptcy, that might be the only way to actually get them to make concessions.

I say keep the budget fight until the budget is cut to accommodate our revenue. If we cannot do that, we shouldn't be spending it. If we cannot promote healthy growth of our economy, everything else is going to suffer and taxing more things will only drive people out.

JohnDoe: Ok, well I dont plan on staying here, but my daughter does and I dont think its right for someone to be taxed out of their home town.

JMR, have you thought for one second about all the teaching jobs that will be going away if we cut too much away from education? You obviously value Kinkos employees over those who teach our children to read.

Caroline

You obviously didnt read what I was talking about did you? The whole reason we are in this situation is because of lack of Revenue from companies like Kinkos. They leave because of the high taxes and restrictions California has. That company put millions into the Revenue stream in California and that was just the corporate office, if you add that up, we are losing millions in possible education spending. Where do you think this money comes from? It comes from every tax payer, but the main source is the companies who pay more taxes than any of us and losing them is a hardship on our economy and budget. You people need to stop looking at this as just about education, its a whole PIE we are talking about and education is just a part of it thats getting hammered because of these flawed policies.. To fix this problem you need to find out why we have shortfalls, and this is the reason, overspending and losing revenue from companies that either close or move their offices out of state. Its a huge burden on them.

Also, the comment about the teachers, you know that is a joke, as Ive stated this isn't just about education, its about why education is in trouble. Its in trouble because of flawed policies. Raising taxes will not solve this problem, its going to make it even worse.

I taught my kids how to read, write, do math and the teachers furthered that education and I value that, but we cannot continue to spend like this without consequences. You think its bad now, wait until there is no more money and the state goes bankrupt. We will lose teachers at a larger rate if they continue to raise taxes and pass bloated budgets. What the state is doing is living past their means, if you or I did that we would be homeless and hungry. Is that an easy enough analogy for you?

No one, no one should be taxed to the point of not being able to survive. But we are in a crisis here! Because of Prop 13 and tax cut mania, we have cut a school system that was, 20 years ago, the top system in the nation, down to the point of dysfunction. We spend less per pupil than every other state except one. Posters here complain bitterly that the schools don't work, and at the same time want to cut more. Does that make any sense at all?

And nothing makes the case for a teacher's union more than the discussion on this blog. When times start getting tough, the educators, who should be among our most valued workers, are asked to shoulder all the costs of making the budget work. They sure aren't getting those golden parachutes, and they're struggling now just like everyone else in the state. I'm glad they're organized, and they shouldn't give an inch. Not while somebody else is saying "No new taxes." I guarantee you the no tax pledgers and their supporters can afford a haircut more than the teachers can.

Oh, and JMR, the myth that those who pay the most taxes leave the state is supported by anecdote and not statistic. People and companies make decisions about where to locate based on many different factors, including whether the infrastructure works, whether they're safe, the quality of the workforce. The costs of living and the costs of doing business are made of more than just taxes, and taxes should be an investment in making some of those other costs go down.

"No New Taxes" is a way of saying, "the system is terrible, I'm not going to participate". But by not participating you make it worse! Now is not the time for that.

Only someone with no hint of a clue could suggest that raising taxes on Californians is "compromise". We pay the highest taxes and have the worst business climate in the state. We have become an economic development agency for neighboring states. Now that Democrats have overspent and grown government at an unsustainable rate, they call some cuts "compromise" when they have no choice in the matter! It would be like having my car repossessed and calling it a compromise I made in my personal budget.

What people need to be able to do is connect more than two dots. Democrats act as if they are all for sensible government, spending restraint and tax relief in any other climate but right now we just "need" this. Nonsense. They have made the same claims and taken the same actions in EVERY economic climate. It's why we're here.

It's time for a real, long-term fix.

Our state economy's issues are clearly related to our issues on the national level. Lower revenue means the programs we all enjoy cannot be sustained. Adequately funding education is imperative.

I've posted this many times but I will do it again for you:

You may be interested to know that of the 33 percent state general fund spending has increased in the last five years, ($77.5 billion in 2002-03 to $103.5 billion in 2007-08) three-fourths is due to inflation (17 percent) and population growth (7 percent). That leaves about $7.4 billion in real spending increases.

Spending on the things Democrats champion like education and social programs was FLAT. What accounted for the increase?

Spending on prisons increased by $4.3 billion and payments to local governments to cover losses of revenue from license fees on cars was another $3.1 billion. Who wanted to lock up more prisoners and cut the car taxes?

Republicans.

Marie, once again you are using selective history. It was Gray Davis who originally cut the car tax. It was the democrats who gave the prison guards union huge pay raises that put their salary scales on the same level as the CHP. It was democrats who gave away 90% pension benefits to prison guards (and almost all other public safety groups). And are you seriously suggesting that adding $7.4 billion in ANNUAL spending increases ABOVE the COMBINED rate of inflation and population growth, in just FOUR YEARS, is OK and that we should just cough up more tax dollars to because they ran out of money? We don't have a REVENUE problem, we have a SPENDING problem. My goodness, you really do live in your own private little world.

Bubba, I was just pointing out to "Compromise?" that the increase in spending has been a bipartisan problem and you can't just blame Democrats.

Davis cut the car tax during the dot.com boom and when he triggered the provision that would raise it again in times of deficit, he was vilified. It was a big part of why he was turned out of office. The first thing Arnold did was cut the VLF. The state had to make up the loss of that money, which funds local governments. This now costs the state more than $6 billion each year.

As far as prison funding, you have conveniently forgotten about the "three strikes" law which our voters approved and which Republicans like. We are the only state which does not require that the third strike -- which puts them in for life -- be for a violent or serious felony. So now we have more prisoners and they are aging and needing expensive medical attention. (Camarillo prison hospital anyone?)

In addition, we have dozens of other voter-approved initiatives which require us to spend money various places. The voters must also accept blame for spending increases.

And we are paying off enormous debt with all this borrowing we have done. Republicans don't want to raise taxes but they have NO trouble borrowing us into oblivion.

Fiscal conservatives. What a laugh that is!

Marie, I will get more into this later, but I want to point out, Im not blaming just the Democrats, but they are the main problem and have been for years. I am more irritated with Republicans who allowed this to continue when they knew it was wrong. Now they are finally doing something and lets hope they get it right. I have no faith with either party any longer. Im not toting party lines here. I want solutions, not the same old policies that have killed our economy and California failed before the National system failed.

I agree with you on the prison system, I think the 3 strikes law is flawed and I dont think we should be creating felons with some of the Un-Constitutional laws on the books.Analogy: Martha Stewart, not a violent person, but now a Felon for supposedly lying. That kind of crap is out of control, I agree with you on that completely.

The Tax issues, I will get back to you on that and the funding. I am for school funding, but it needs to be done in a smart and sustainable way. So we are in agreement, we just have a different approach and I want to prove that higher taxes is not the right approach, it only extends the inevitable.

The rest of the country has woken up to the fact that the no taxes philosophy that has destroyed our economy just doesn't work, while the posters on this blog are stuck in last year. Read the papers. Our economy is the crapper, Bubba, and the SPENDING problem we have is that we're not doing enough of it. The Federal stimulus is an attempt to help us, but our Republican legislators want to reverse the impact by trashing the school system.

The ridiculous tax restrictions in California have forced our costs up by forcing us to borrow, and prevented us from investing in infrastructure that would save us money in the long run. Tax the rich, I say. They're more likely to leave California if we have no schools and terrible roads, then if we get them to pay a little extra for the yachts and golf club fees.

No Bubba - it is not a $7.4 billion annual increase. It is $7.4 billion in 5 years, which is still a chunk o' change, but not what you state.

blame the stricklands for a budget crisis created by a democratic legislature. good job.

Math, my point was that it is an increase in spending of $7.4 billion ANNUALLY. It is not a one-time expense, these are costs we will be incurring every year that will likely increase even higher over time. Over, say, five years we are talking about at least $37 million.

Marie, I am just as disgusted with the prison system and the CCPOA as anybody else. I voted against the 3 strikes law, and I think that ballot box budgeting is idiocy. Where I take exception is your characterization of the increase in prison costs and the overcrowding of prisons as primarily caused by republicans. That is simply not true. It would be more fair to say that this is a problem created by both parties, and also by the public. It was, after all, the public that passed Megan's Law and a whole host of other punitive rules that have extended prison terms. These laws were passed in a state that has more registered democrats than republicans, so again you can't say this is a problem caused by republicans. It was Gray Davis who signed into law the large pay and pension increases for prison guards, and who took a $2 million campaign contribution from the CCPOA. So again, you are being misleading when you single out republicans as somehow being at fault for prison spending. It is simply not true, yet you keep repeating the same talking points on the subject as if it is a one-sided issue.

And to Sick of it, the "rich" in California already pay the highest personal income tax rate in the nation. More likely than not your plan to continue to punish the wealthy will result in them leaving our state and taking their tax dollars with them. Then who will you tax? Also, high taxes on the wealthy is also partially responsibly for our yo-yo budgeting problems, since wealthy individuals receive a large portion of their income from businesses and investments. When the stock market drops or the economy suffers wealthy people typically have large reductions in their incomes, which results in a corresponding plunge in tax revenues. California needs more consistent tax sources. Plus this whole class envy nonsense needs to stop. There is nothing wrong with being wealthy and we need to stop punishing people because we resent them for being successful and achieving the American dream.

Bubba, I'm not singling out Republicans. I'm merely pointing out that we have shared culpability for the mess we're in. I am constantly hearing bloggers and others like "Compromise," (who I also found personally insulting) say the Democrats are entirely to blame.

On the national level, the Republicans have been in charge of our economic policies for eight years. Lack of oversight from these free-market thinkers has helped create economic havoc which has undermined our state's fragile underpinnings.

Does our state government need reforms and massive change? Absolutely! But this will take time. Right now we are in a tight spot in our state and in need of an immediate solution. The budget the Big Five is working on right now will likely be the compromise I seek and this conversation will be moot.

The Republicans will have to throw somebody under the bus to get it passed and I will be the first one to give them a contribution for their next election.

Well said Marie.
For me, I am also with Katie, tho' an Indie as both parties have to suck it up & get this resolved, NOW !

Here are a few thoughts. One, I don't think it fair that ALL State employess are punished, when they themselves have nmo say whatsoever in the Budget. At least they were given a Friday in stead of a Tue, Wed. or Thurs, so they get a 3 day weekend every other week.
Next, I would, without hesitation, sequester the Partisan Parties directly responsible for the lack of a Budget after so many months & they will NOT leave until they get it done. And they need to do what our Governator said at his "State of the Union" but more; I'd not pay them until they DO get it done. They would be allowed to collect back pay, but only once they sign off on it. But no back pay for expenses & per diems.
This is absolutely absurd; how many months have they had ? For future Budgtes, I would also write in that if it is not done by the traditional due date, they are mautomatically sequestered! No vacations, no holidays, no pay & maybe, just maybe they would start earlier to resolve this mess.

Yea, Lakers win 5 on the road, without Bynum & they beat the Green in Beantown & the Cavs in Ohio who had not lost in 23 homes games this year !

"Bubba, I'm not singling out Republicans. I'm merely pointing out that we have shared culpability for the mess we're in. I am constantly hearing bloggers and others like "Compromise," (who I also found personally insulting) say the Democrats are entirely to blame.

On the national level, the Republicans have been in charge of our economic policies for eight years. Lack of oversight from these free-market thinkers has helped create economic havoc which has undermined our state's fragile underpinnings.

Does our state government need reforms and massive change? Absolutely! But this will take time. Right now we are in a tight spot in our state and in need of an immediate solution. The budget the Big Five is working on right now will likely be the compromise I seek and this conversation will be moot.

The Republicans will have to throw somebody under the bus to get it passed and I will be the first one to give them a contribution for their next election."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John K, to whom are you referring ?

By John King on February 5, 2009 10:48 PM
"...and I promise...I WILL bring CHANGE to America!"

Also, who will most suffer from the cuts the Governator is making ? Yes, the least of whom can afford it; financially or pragmatically. The elderly, the disabled, school children ? He even wants to tax veterinary service by over 9% ! Come on Arnold, get a grip & why not make cuts on those more equipped to handle it ? I knew there was more reasons I didn't vote for you.
How about larger taxes for big business ?
Nice job, Gov !

Curious Bub; why did you vote against the 3 Strikes Law ? And if I may, did you vote for Meagan's Law ?

Educator,
While I agree it may not do much good, directly, to protest, but I do feel it can bring to light certain issues some many not be aware of & maybe get them involved, then maybe in turn, if enough see & get involved, then yes, it will have not been in vain.
But I liken it to voting; if someone doesn't vote, do NOT let me hear them complain, even for a second, or I'll be all over them like a monkey on a cupcake ! And I worked with such a guy for 16 years - he was the first to complain but for all the years I knew him, not once did he vote !

The 3 strikes law is a bad law since it is arbitrary and takes away the discretion of judges to determine an appropriate punishment. Not all felonies are equal, and under 3 strikes we often get punishments that are grossly disproportionate to the crime. There are lots of examples, like the guy who got sentenced to 50 years to life after stealing video tapes from Kmart, or the guy who got 25 to life after stealing a set of golf clubs, or the famous case of the guy who got 25 to life after stealing a pizza. We have people serving life sentences who have no history of violent crime. I'm not saying that criminals shouldn't be punished for their crimes, only that the punishment should fit the crime. Most people are primarily concerned with violent criminals who get repeatedly paroled only to continue committing the same crimes. There are always going to be those tragic cases where some dude gets out of prison and commits a heinous crime. But we can't respond to that by having the mentality of putting people in prison for life for relatively minor offenses to prevent the possibility that they might commit another crime in the future. That is simply unjust.

Interestingly enough, the public is now balking at paying for the long-term incarceration costs for these inmates, which includes massive healthcare costs for aging prisoners serving life sentences. But we passed these laws and this is one of the consequences.

Some valid Points Bubba, but since I voted for it, I have to offer some rebuttal. Before I do, you say it's a bad law, I say it's a good law.
In most all states, a felony shoplifting is generally for anything over 100-300 bucks, anything less is most often a misdemeanor; a petty theft.
I also feel deterant is far more effective if the perpetrator knows, KNOWS that if he gets busted, AND convicted of a 3rd felony, he/she will think more about it. if they know the 3rd strike will not mean a lifetime incarceration, they would be more apt to go thru with their crime.
Also, it is for convictions, not crimes or arrests. That said, a criminal may get off thanks to a shrewd lawyer, there may be less than adequate evidence to bring to trial, even tho' the person committed said crimes. But when the 3 Strikes is in effect, it's most ofetn appiled to someone who has committed far more than 3 crimes.
And so many victims, & non victims as well, feel the courts are not acting in best interest to the victims. That is, with plea bargains, liberal judges/juries, cases backloged, etc., so that many criminals, slip thru the system. But most crimes of a felony nnature, are committed by repeat offenders & the law makes sure that thoise deserving of punishmnet will get theirs.
I know that some 8-10 years or so ago, the Supreme Court dealt w/ a few cases here in CA & they found no problem in the sentences.
I feel that it's a good law for the reasons I gave. i agree the health insurance is a sticking point & not sure if there's a better, or another way to deal with this. First, all prisons have a medical ward, so to speak, so for minor issues, it's not a factor, tho' serious illnesses does present a problem, but I for one, as many, many others, don't mind as long as a hard core criminal is behind bars, serious illness or not. some would argue that once convicted & serving a life sentence, they lose all rights, including healthcare. I am not one of them, but that argument has been around.
From a personal standpoint, I lost a dear friend 24 years ago. She was off duty as an RN at 2 AM from a hospital, yes, the same time bars close & she was struck & killed by a thrice convicted drunk driver. Had that law been in effect pre 1984, she would be alive today.
For me, the onll gray area is the health costs, but to me, & many like me, it's worth it & I would vote again to pass it.

I can see your point of view. Regardless, if the public wants to incarcerate prisoners for life they should be prepared for the social and fiscal costs associated with that decision. These decisions have left us with prison overcrowding and fiscal red ink at the state. Worse yet, our prison system is so badly managed that it has been threatened with federal receivership. Something needs to give.

Hey Bubba, we agree - strike up the band ! Seriously, we are in that mode now as they are discussing the early releases of many prisoners; with discretion I would imagine, with those due to be released in the near future & those of a first offense, or misdemeanor & non violent offenses.
But yes, the health costs issue is a sticking point & yes, some accountability, or more than there is now, should be in place for the the entire state prison system. Seems that it has been lacking for some time now.

Posted in the other category by mistake; sorry

Breaking news just emailed to me:

Way to go Awnold - add another 10,000 to the unemployment books!

"Governor threatens to lay off 10,000 state workers

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will move to lay off as many as 10,000 state workers if lawmakers fail to take action to close the state's nearly $42 billion deficit by the end of the week, an administration spokesman said this morning.

Schwarzenegger's press secretary said that, absent a budget deal, the administration will send out pink slips Friday."

My problem with this, as I stated in a Post a few days ago, is those 10,000 workers have NOTHING to do w/ the Budget - why punish the foot troops that make the Legislators look good ?
Again I say sequester those that actually set the Budget - no budget ? No leaving, no pay ! My God, that's their job & they're what, 7 months behind, in what they get paid to do ? Lay them off first !
I worked for the County of Ventura for 16+ years & had a lot of issues w/ the way the County was/ is being run; still do. But it would not be fair to lay off 3 or 4,000 employees simply because the powers that be cannot do their collective jobs effectively.
Adding more fuel to the already volatile work force Governator!

No, I am n ot a fan of Awnold, or his films. but I think he's a decent man, who, IMHO, was not fully qualfied to run a state as large as ours. But I was not a fan of Gray's either, so the old story - do I vote off party or for what I felt was the lesser of two evils, so I voted for Shwarzen, no, Differnbach, um, Redenbacher, no that's popcorn, hmm; okay, I voted for Arnold !
Jerry brown again ?!

so we all blame the executive branch for the legislature's inability to compromise. If it's not the Stricklands, it must be Arnold. If it's not the republican hold outs in congress in Washington, its bush's previous economic plan that had to go through both houses with a majority of the other party in control that is to blame.

In both cases you have "moderate" republicans caving to democratic demands of pork legislation in washington and tax increases in sacramento. And in both cases enough votes to pass the legislation that the "moderates" came up with. But in both cases, it is the Democratic party that will refuse to compromise and deal in a bipartisan way with those with opposing idealistic beliefs. hyprocritical?

I don't recall BuSH Admin listening to anybody, not even their own party on many ocassion! AT least so far, this party has not lied as did the others ! WMD's ? I think not ! Sadaam vital to 9/11 ? I think not ! Yet billions upon billions of dollars & thousands of lives lost, & for what ?! Yea, your Post is haha !

Hello again my old friend haha,

I'm sorry, but how are the Democrats in Sacramento not compromising? They have offered to cut billions from programs. One plan I saw even had them cutting more from education than the governor did!

HaHa,

Define pork barrel spending. Do you mean earmarks or just wasteful spending?

Marie,

How did he get his font in bold?

Haha obviously knows how to program HTML. I put my comments in bold sometimes, too.

It's sort of a polite way of shouting at us. Better than all caps.

The problem is that all the "compromises" made by democrats result in cuts to public services or increased taxes. Translation: the public pays more for less service. Nowhere do I see any plans for public employees, who benefited from generous pay and benefit increases during the good times, to share in any of the pain. All cuts are coming at the expense of the public. Why aren't modest pay cuts, or even short-term pay freezes on the table?

For example, in our public schools we are preserving teacher pay and benefits while increasing class sizes, cutting bus services, and eliminating music and sports programs. During the past decade LAUSD added thousands of administrative positions while enrollment DECLINED by over 100,000 students, yet there is no proposal to trim employee headcount, only to cut services to students. Public safety departments continue to get generous pay and benefit increases, yet at the same time our prison system may release thousands of inmates because of budget shortfalls. That is not a compromise. That is holding taxpayers hostage and threatening them with slashing services unless they agree to tax increases in order to sustain overly generous contracts given to public employee unions.

I don't think that there should be any agreement to raise taxes unless there is a willingness to renegotiate some of these union contracts.

Bubba,

At the recent meeting held with state officials ( besides the Republican delegation that refused to attend) there was discussion over teaching positions being eliminated. In addition, most school districts are not giving raises and there is talk over a 2.5% pay cut by eliminating 5 days of the school year.

All of that is cutting positions and pay. Is your local government, city or county, cutting back pay for law enforcement?

As far as I know there are no plans in my local community to cut law enforcement salaries or benefits. On the contrary, public safety contracts are typically tied to salary surveys that guarantee pay raises of pay raises are granted in other departments. There are no cost controls. My local police department just handed out a 7% pay raise based on a salary survey. At the same time they are cutting other city positions and leaving some law enforcement positions vacant. It is apparent that we can't fully staff our police department because we keep handing out generous pay and benefit increases to the cops we already have.

I've said the same thing about the City of Ventura. They have been complaining for years that they don't have enough funds to fully staff their public safety departments, and have gone as far as putting proposed sales tax increases on the ballot and also went forward with the misguided 911 fee. The argument the entire time was that there was inadequate funding to fully staff these departments. Yet just a few months ago they had enough funding to give firefighters a 50% increase in their pensions so that they can retire at up to 90% pay as early as age 55. They justified the increase as needed to recruit and retain personnel, yet the turnover rate in the department over the past five years was just 1.5%. Now the city again says it is broke and needs more tax dollars. I think that they should be asking for some concessions from their public safety unions before going back to taxpayers for more money.

Why are our local government handing out generous pay and benefit increases during an economic crisis? Ordinary Americans are losing their jobs and their homes while public employees are still grabbing more for themselves and asking for even more money from the taxpayers. And all of this is going to get even worse when CalPERS adjusts its pension contribution rates after having lost over 40% of the value of its investment portfolio in just the last year. The cost of these lucrative pension deals is about to explode. Hold on to your wallets.

BTW, even if the governor cuts the school year by 5 days it does not mean that teachers would suffer any pay cuts. That would have to be negotiated separately by each district through collective bargaining, and any pay cuts would be strongly opposed by the teachers unions. I'm sure that the teachers unions could agree to modest concessions in order to keep schools open and avoid many layoffs, but I have no reason to be optimistic that they will offer anything. A few years back when the economy was doing well and the housing bubble was in full swing I recall one year when that the state received windfall revenues. Those revenues were passed on to school districts in the form of an additional, unanticipated funding equivalent to about 6% of school district budgets. Pretty much every school district rushed to pass pay increases for teachers, using virtually all the windfall funds for supplemental pay raises on top of previously negotiated pay raises. But now when times are tough is the teachers union willing to give something back to avoid cuts in the classroom? I doubt it.

Bubba, re: the taxes for law enforcement & firefighters, as well as for 911 , the GP summarily voted down a 1/4 of 1 penny tax ! So no one is to blame but the GP themselves as even I, on a very fixed income & a recnt cut of 550.00 (!) thanks to increased medical bennies, voted for the 1/4 cent tax. I mean, a quarter of one cent ?!
The subsequent 911 fee was very misguided, but since the tax fell, they scrambled & came up with that; good, bad or indifferent.

Bubba, I can speak with all certainty that the City of Ventura is now working with its unions on concessions.

And hey, it looks like we have a state budget plan now! But I don't think it will make either of us entirely happy, Bubba.

Why should taxpayers trust the city when they said they needed a sales tax increase to fund public safety positions? They cried poor for years, yet they can apparently afford a 50% increase in pension benefits for firefighters. Seems to me that every time the taxpayers are dumb enough to give them more money all they do is give it away to the public employee unions who finance their political campaigns. There is no reason to believe that your city council will spend additional tax dollars wisely as they have already demonstrated a lack of fiscal responsibility. If you give them more of your hard earned money they'll simply be back in a couple of years with all the same arguments asking for more.

The state is at it again with plans to, once again, raise the sales tax rate in order to solve a budget problem. Gee, I remember when the state sales tax rate was 6%. Now it is at 7.25% and anticipated to go up to 9.75% if the proposed budget deal is passed. Tack on proposals to hike these taxes even further for public safety, transportation, education, etc and it is conceivable for sales taxes to start approaching 11% or higher. I'm not sure how that will work in stimulating the economy. More likely we will be closing more auto dealerships when people decide it's too expensive to buy a new car after California hikes up sales taxes, licensing fees and gas taxes. Funny how the government is providing billions of dollars in bailout money to auto companies while simultaneously taxing and regulating them out of business. Wacky stuff indeed.

Marie,

I'll believe it when I see it. I still have serious doubts that the city council will get any kind of real concessions out of the unions. Usually what you get is things like an agreement to "save" money by going to a 4 day workweek, but what really happens is that employees go to 10 hour shifts. So the city saves a little electricity and the union maintains their salary, benefits, and gets 3 day weekends. And good luck making sure that these employees really do work 10 hours each day. Or perhaps they will negotiate an early retirement buyout in order to "save" money. This way the city reduces headcount and can cut it's operating costs. But in exchange the unions get pension enhancements as an incentive for them to voluntarily retire, so again there is no real sacrifice. Or how about the time that Gray Davis negotiated a "concession" from the prison guards union that delayed scheduled pay increases in exchange for benefit enhancements. So in essence the union got an even more generous contract by delaying pay raises that they eventually got anyway.

Most union concessions involve getting more in exchange for pushing costs into the future. But hey, let's see what happens. Maybe I'll be surprised this time. Just don't forget to read the fine print.

The unions hardly finance political campaigns in Ventura, Bubba. They are limited to $175 per individual donation if they don't accept a spending cap, $275 if they do. We aren't your Simi Valley!

The pension increase for our firefighters was budgeted for. Many here in the community felt it was the right thing to do. They are receiving less than neighboring communities. But it was a split vote.

Our unions are looking at givebacks. Let's let them work through the process before rushing to judgment.

Please, don't act like I'm naive. Unions give more than direct financial contributions. They also give endorsements to candidates. Also, they run call centers to support candidates and can also send a small army of workers to go door-to-door to support a candidate. If a union doesn't like a candidate they can also run independent ads to try and damage their candidacy, and members are often encouraged to write large volumes of letters to elected representatives and to local papers to influence opinions. So please spare me this holier-than-thou (We aren't your Simi Valley!) view of your local city council not being the least influenced by union leverage. Their actions speak otherwise.

And the pension increases was inexcusable. How convenient that the city budgeted for an unnecessary giveaway of public funds to a politically connected group, yet just a few months later they now say they need millions more in tax dollars because of budget deficits. For years the city claimed that it didn't have enough funds to adequately staff its public safety departments without additional tax dollars, yet magically they come up with the money for a 50% pension increase. And you think that closing libraries, slashing other public services, and increasing taxes during a slumping economy, while simultaneously granting lavish perks to a politically connection union is "the right thing to do"?

Well, if the City didn't apply the 1/4 of 1 cent tax for police & fire, then vote them out - for 1/4 cent, I was willing to take that chance.

Also, I guess I don't mind so much in paying taxes as how else will they perform necessary services & fund projects ? Some want something for nothing. Again, I am on a very fixed income, minus 50 bucks a month, yet the sales tax has gone up 1.25 cents in how many years ? If memory serves, it has been 6 or 7 years since it increased & that was only a 1/4%; from 7 to 7.25%

I just don't see that as a big hit to anyone's wallet or purse. Granted, they must do the right thing with it, if not, we have that choice again to vote out those responsible

Our union support here has been limited to occasional signs and a mailer. I can't think of when they've run call centers and walked precincts for Council candidates. Never attack ads. Again, we're not Simi Valley.

Bubba, you don't live in Ventura and only have a vague idea of what goes on here from newspaper articles. I can tell you that our mayor was endorsed by fire, yet voted against the pension increase.

Yes, many people here do think competitive pay for firefighters is the right thing to do. I talk to folks all the time who believe this.

Did I completely agree with the decision? No.

But I absolutely agree with NatureMuzik that 1/4 cent is no big deal. I didn't think the $1.49-a-month 911 fee was a big deal, either. It was just badly implemented, that's all.

Bubba, you don't live here ? If I msy, where do you live ?

Bubba,

Call your school board. If the school year is cut by the state, the local school board and their union does not have to agree for teachers' salaries to be cut. His proposal allows local school districts to do it without opening a contract or any negotiations.

That means teachers are facing cuts as are furloughed state workers. Stop pretending all of the unions are the same. Your argument is with unions for police and firefighters.

No, my argument is also with the prison guards union, SEIU, and teachers unions. All of these groups benefited during good economic times and were rewarded with generous pay and benefit increases. Now that times are tough they need to come to the table and be willing to give something back so that tax increases and cuts to public services can be minimized.

And Marie, you have never provided any rational explanation as to why public safety employees should be given up to 90% pay at retirement, other than continually repeating that their compensation needs to be "competitive". I happen to believe that the existing pay and benefits of your fire department were more than competitive. Just because another department chooses to give away lavish perks doesn't mean that your city should then be compelled to do the same. That is how we go into this mess. The proof is the fact that the turnover rate was 1.5%. Despite claims by the union, your department didn't have a documented recruitment or retention problem, therefore the pay was already competitive. Based on your reasoning, if Thousand Oaks decides to pay their firefighters $1 million per year your city must do the same in order to be "competitive". That makes it pretty easy to game the system.

Bubba, in what city do you reside ?
When you say public safety employees, can you be more specific ? Thanks

Bubba,

When was the last time your local teachers earned a pay increase? They are facing cutbacks in staff and a 2.5% pay reduction. Let me know when the police and firefighters take a pay cut.

Geez, Bubba, I feel like we're in that movie "Groundhog Day" and I just keep posting the same stuff over and over. Yes, the FD was having trouble with recruitment. I've heard this from multiple sources, including our City Manager's blog which I linked to before here. Please point to documented evidence they were not.

I think we get that you are unhappy with public employee unions.

NM, Bubba posted way above that he was from Simi Valley.

Sorry Bubba as I didn't see it. Thanks for pointing it our Marie.

Marie: I'm not going to go into the tax stuff anymore because you obviously don't get what is happening. They have increased our taxes for these reasons already and it still didn't work, they just grow spending and don't really fix the problem the increases were intended for in the first place. Its a joke.

On the Union concessions, I don't think they will make any and its wrong to label it as if they are trying to compromise. The only ones trying to compromise are the Administrators and Teachers and I applaud them for at least trying. Food for thought, my wife attended a PTA meeting tonight where the administrators and teachers are trying to make concessions on their own and come up with other alternatives to alleviate the budget shortfalls like adding 2 children to a class, cutting their own pay etc. They have some pretty good ideas and solutions and when they brought those ideas to the Union, they were told NO. 20 kids or 30 kids to a class, no 22 kids to a class. Talk about compromise. The Union is clearly going to stand between the tax payers and the teachers on this, so lets see what happens. I have no faith in the Union. This is why I'm dead set against these Unions, even with the majority of these teachers trying to get them to help the situation, they get turned down. I just wanted to say we should give a hand to the teachers and administrators that are at least trying to get them to come up with better solutions and offering their own to the Unions.

School spending has not even kept up with inflation. Not sure where you're getting your figures JMR.

Tax Dollars at Work. I had to learn how to do this to get my BA in Political Science

it was really fun!

But it was required, and in my opinion wasted my time, and tax dollars at the same time.

My real problem with the blame game was that they hadn't passed the proposed budget with all of the compromises from both sides, because I am upset that so many republicans agreed to the extent of the tax increases that made it into the budget. Now that the dems have decided that they got the best offer they will ever get, we will finally pass a budget. Yes, one that will harm the business economy in California and cause their exodus, but one that will supposedly fix our 40 billion dollar deficit. Let's just borrow money from the Fed like Obama wants to do by printing more money. That would work just as well.

I'm not yelling, I just actually wanted to see if it would work. I will probably refrain after this post.

Pork is defined as any legislature, which benefits the constituents of a particular legislator, and/or in this case party, over another one, for the sole purpose of gaining votes of more popularity to use in the next election, rather than benefiting the state, or nation.

Yes, you can use HTML tags here. Few people do.

I just want to have a little kumbaya moment here and say that while we sure aren't agreeing, we are having a decent, civil discussion, which is better than most blogs. So yay for us.

I have a question: Why is it none of our legislators listen to the recommendations made by the Legislative Analyst's Office? Lots of good ideas, reforms, etc., all ignored.

I have yet to hear a cogent explanation of why this is.

Hello Bubba?

You out there? I hope you noticed the story today about all the concessions from the unions:

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/feb/12/ventura-workers-hope-pay-slash-can-stop-layoffs/#viewcomments

I'm waiting for the city to post its report and I'll put up an entry on it.

Marie, you have never provided once shred of data to back up your claim that there was a recruitment and retention problem at the fire department. Quoting your City Manager's blog site is hearsay, and his statement that there was a problem are not backed up by anything other than his own words. I have already provided links to VC Star articles that listed the number of sworn positions vacated within the department over the past several years, and based on ACTUAL DATA there is no such problem. It shows a turnover rate of just 1.5%. Nobody has contested the accuracy of the article in the Star, including the union and your own City Manager. Just because he says there is a problem does not make it so, and the actual data says otherwise. He has the burden of proof to show that there was actually a problem that required the spending of millions of taxpayer dollars to solve. You and the city council are wrong to take him and the union at their word with no evidence to back up their statements. You seem willing to take a leap of faith and assume that everything the union says is true, even without evidence. Then, preposterously, you expect others to DISPROVE an argument based on assumptions and hearsay with no actual supporting evidence. That is a logical fallacy. I've already supplied the evidence, which was based on research provided by your local paper. Are you saying that the Star's data is wrong? If so, please have your City Manager share with us the data he used to form his opinion.

And you conveniently ignored what I just posted before your post. The firefighters voted to postpone their benefit increase for years.

I would ask you to provide proof of your assertions before you decide to call a city manager and fire officials' integrity into question. Since you do not live here, do not work in city hall, do not know anyone in the Ventura FD and are admittedly anti-union, and are anonymous, I think the burden of proof lies with you.

Here is an administrative document that backs up what Cole said:

http://www.ci.ventura.ca.us/newsmanager/articlefiles/4442-item%2003.pdf

" have a question: Why is it none of our legislators listen to the recommendations made by the Legislative Analyst's Office? Lots of good ideas, reforms, etc., all ignored."

I agree MArie.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I don't mind taxes for Law Enforcement, Firefighters & Paramedics, as they more then deserve it; same with their pensions. I have several friends who are Deputies for the VCSD; also know a few firefighters & exchange emails with a few officers of the VPD & I have been on ride alongs & most kids say they want to ba a cop or fireman, but not in this age; trust me.

I have no issues with the money they make, esp. since they put their lives on the line each & every shift & unlike 98% of most other jobs, they may not return home after a 12 hours shift. Also, they put in long hours; most about 60-70 hours a week, & even more at times.

Lastly, I am also very supportive of those in the medical field; again, they work long & many hours, go to school for at least 8-10 years, usually more, so IMO, they deserve all they make.

So what? They agreed to postpone a 50% increase in their pension benefits by one year. But they are still taking it. Taxpayers get a short reprieve, but in the end they will still pay, and most likely will have to incur tax increases and cuts to public services to pay for the additional cost. Firefighters are still going to get the benefit, and they have not agreed to any actual reduction in pay or benefits, just a small delay in implementation. And I'm suppose to be impressed?

It still doesn't address the issues that I have raised from the beginning:

1. There was no justification for the benefit increase as there is no evidence to support the claim that there is a recruitment or retention problem.
2. There is no rational justification why any public employee should be entitled to retire at up to 90% of pay.
3. The real cost of the benefit will likely be significantly higher than estimated because of huge investment losses at CalPERS, and taxpayers are the ones who have to make up the difference.
4. The city complained for years that they didn't have the funds to fully staff the department, yet miraculously they can now afford a 50% increase in pension benefits.
5. The city was already attempting tax increases to support public services, which means that they spent money they don't have and are now expecting taxpayers to cough up more of their hard earned money to pay for these commitments.
6. It is ABSURD to suggest that those that disagree with the pension increase need to DISPROVE that it was needed, rather than requiring that your city council provide actual data supporting the spending of millions of local taxpayer dollars to solve the phantom recruitment and retention issue.

You refuse to give straight answers to any of those issues. Instead you rely on hearsay information from a blog, and vague, emotional arguments, like stating that the city needs to offer "competitive" wages. And now you seem to be suggesting that because I don't live in your town it is none of my business, yet you freely participate in threads in Brian Dennert's and your own blog on issues outside of your city.

I'm appalled that you continue to give your local elected officials a free pass for their reckless spending and fiscal irresponsibility. And burdening citizens with higher taxes during the worst economy since the great depression is a recipe for disaster.

I'll be happy to return to this topic next year to discuss this some more since things will likely get much worse for your town. But hey, it's your city, so if you think your elected officials have been doing such a great job then keep voting for them. Good luck.

By the way, that administrative document that you provided provides NO DATA that supports the argument that their is a recruitment or retention problem. It simply says that the department needs to provide "competitive" wages. Which basically means that the city feels an obligation to hike pay and benefits because that's what everybody else is doing, regardless of whether there is actually money to pay for the increases in compensation. The document reads like it was written by the union itself.

Calm down Bubba. I know your overwhelming dislike for public employee unions makes you testy. But we can be civil, right? The document clearly stated they they were trying to hire "laterals" from other agencies with certain specialized training. It's harder if you can't pay competitively. I'm not sure why that is difficult for you to understand.

Many folks here do think these folks earn and deserve their pay.

They've put their benefit package off for 15 months, so let's see how it goes.

Are you equally incensed at Oxnard for paying their public safety folks even more and also raising their sales taxes last fall?

There have been reports of lines of up to 4 thousand people in line for 2 available firefighter positions. There is no shortage. There is a shortage in Places that need, and can afford them. The state forest dept. is usually always recruiting, but it is the least glamorous, most strenuous of all the firefighting positions, and there in lies the problem. But the democratic idea is to start a fire to make people believe that we need to spend more on fire protection personnel. Then after we put out the fire, and have hired(and spent the money to hire them)the fire fighters, you accuse the republicans of all kinds of mismanagement when there is no fire to put out, and republicans suggest cutting the increase in spending to them for the next year.

Now, replace every "firefighter" with any economic situation and taxes you have the reason sacramento has put us in this position.

This is a HTML test.

Marie, comments on your website load quicker.>

Marie,

What HTML works and doesn't work? Care to post a few? Can we change the color of fonts in our posts?

Yet another test.

Brian, you are such a goof sometimes. No, you can't change colors. Only bold and italics.

Bubba,

Ever think of running for public office?

Bubba, you are right to say that it's the city's responsibility to validate its claim of recruitment and retention problems. It's surprising that no one with this data is forthcoming.

The admin report refers to "top talent." What exactly does top talent mean and is it mandatory for every position?

This recent Star article states that "competition is fierce" for city firefighting positions:

Firefighter Leaves Forests for City (11-23-08)

I tried to explain it but obviously not well enough. Lateral recruitment means they are trying to recruit from other agencies. Ventura requires specialized training and experience. It's harder to pull folks in here when we're paying less.

I am sure if you talked to the FD and asked, they would give you the information you need. I did ask. This is what I was told.

The article you linked to was about Carpinteria.

So Marie, you think the article is saying there is only "fierce competition" for Carpinteria fire jobs? Hardly believable.

What exactly were you told by the FD? Only four people applied for open fire positions?

What does "top talent" mean? You are saying it means "lateral transfer"?

Re: unfilled positions, is it because there is 1) no money, or 2) no qualified applicants?

I think you should also check into it and report back. Ask Chief Lavery.

Thanks for posting.

The city has already admitted that it doesn't have the funds to fill vacant positions. That is why they put two sales tax measures on the ballot and passed the 911 fee. The reason why you have vacancies is because of inadequate funding, not because of a recruitment problem. And continually hiking pay and benefits for existing employees only makes it more difficult to fill vacancies.

With regard to the recruitment and retention issue, your own Mayor said that she was not convinced that lower pay or benefits was causing employees to leave, citing the fact that only one employee had left to a higher paying agency in the past two years (click on the link). Again, this is a phantom issue being advanced by the union that is not backed up by real data. Weir, Andrews and Morehouse also pointed out that there was no dedicated funding to pay for the increased benefit, and also expressed concern about the city's deteriorating finances (contrary to Marie's assertion that the city's financial problems only materialized months later). The majority of city council members already knew that the city's finances were shaky, they already knew that they couldn't fund existing vacant firefighter positions, and yet they still voted to give away millions of taxpayer dollars on a lavish perk.

Marie, you also keep stating that I have a dislike for public employee unions. My anger is directed at the fiscal mismanagement of your city in caving into the demands of the unions. People should be able to speak out about these types of issues without being labeled as being anti-union, anti-teacher, anti-cop, etc. It is the reckless giveaway of tax dollars to politically connected interest groups that angers me, and something that should anger you as well. And your elected leaders then have the gall to claim that they a revenue problem, and that the only solution is increasing taxes on working families during the toughest economic climate in a generation. People are losing their jobs and their homes, and it is simply unfair to expect those same people to now fund pension increases to public employees so they can enjoy early retirement at 90% pay. It is morally wrong, period. And just because other cities have been irresponsible with their finances doesn't mean that your city should should be dumb enough to do the same. These pensions are a ticking timebomb, and your city council just lit the fuse.

And the union agreed to give it up for a year at least.

You never answered my question about the Oxnard Council. Are you equally angry at them for paying their firefighters better than we do and voting to put a sales tax measure on the ballot?

How about Santa Barbara? Better pay up there, too, and they are cutting $9 million from their budget.

Nobody is forcing taxes on anyone. In Ventura's case it's up to the voters to decide. We have polling that says a 60% majority would vote to do so.

Even if the firefighters gave that $1 million in pension benefits back permanently, we would still be $11 million off.

Delaying the increase for 1 year is not good enough, nor does it justify the giveaway of taxpayer dollars for an unnecessary perk. And other cities are just as irresponsible for doing the same. I've been critical of my own city for handing out lucrative pay raises during an economic downturn. What happened at the City of Vallejo is a precursor to something that will spread around the state because of this type of fiscal mismanagement.

And taxpayers are being held hostage by being given the "choice" of increasing their own taxes or suffering massive cuts in city services. Either way they are the ones who will be paying the price. And don't forget that your city has already rejected two sales tax proposals that were placed on the ballot and revolted against the 911 fee. It also won't be easy to get local voters to support a sales tax increase on top of the 1% increase that is about to be passed by state legislators. Plus the teachers union is rumored to be moving forward with a ballot initiative for a 1/2 cent sales tax for school funding. Plus the state will soon be passing a 12 cent per gallon gas tax, and doubling the vehicle license fee. So I seriously doubt those 60% poll numbers will hold up on election day. Good luck with that plan, but, personally, I think it is wishful thinking.

Well, I understood Marie & not recently, I did ask the FD years ago on a related matter & had no problems then.

And someone says "hardly believable" for firefighter's positions ?! Really ?!? Why ? It would seem barely believable if there wasn't - take a look around, for God's sake ! Read a paper, pick up a magazine, watch the news, something to get a clue!

" I tried to explain it but obviously not well enough. Lateral recruitment means they are trying to recruit from other agencies. Ventura requires specialized training and experience. It's harder to pull folks in here when we're paying less.

I am sure if you talked to the FD and asked, they would give you the information you need. I did ask. This is what I was told.

The article you linked to was about Carpinter"

Geez Bubba - what is your problem w/ public & personal safety ? Why are you so seemingly against them ?
Not assuming, nor implying, but I knew a few guys over the years that had the same attitude as do you with respect to Law Enrorcement, Firefighters & in their cases only, they had "problems" with the police or Sheriff's in the past, thereby souring them on all public safety officials. The most recent guy I knew of, was busted for solicitation yet it's the police's fault ?!
So please enlighten us, why are you so against them making a good salary for the long hard, dangerous hours, risking their onw lives to help & save others, of which 99.9% they don't even know - what's your problem with them Bubba ?

Bubba, your posts are much appreciated. Your reasoning is sound and you ask questions that need to be asked. Thanks.

Bottom line, unless there is a TRUE recruitment and retention problem which ALSO results in unacceptable levels of service to taxpayers, the level of compensation is already at a fair market rate. Anything above that may unfortunately be perceived by outsiders as undue union influence or cronyism.

Also thanks to Mayor Weir, and Councilmembers Andrews and Morehouse for their wisdom on this issue.

Ventura has an excellent, excellent public safety department and we should all be proud. But as Mr. Andrews stated the night of the pension vote, "We really appreciate the work you do but we just don't have the money right now. Sorry, fellas."

NM, I don't have a problem with public safety employees, and there is nothing in my past that makes me against them. I have close friends and family members in law enforcement. At the same time, I also recognize that we have to balance our available fiscal resources against competing needs. If we spend more money on law enforcement it means less money for things like libraries or services to the homeless, elderly and disabled. You have to ask yourself whether it makes sense to increase pension benefits to one group of public employee, while handing out pink slips to librarians and clerks. And while public safety is an important priority for any city, it is not the only priority. If you spend all your money on cops and firefighters but leave nothing for parks, libraries, and roads then you won't live in a very desirable community.

I also want to be clear that I have no problem with police officers and firefighters being well compensated. But I believe that in our local communities they already are well compensated and that many of the continuing increases in pay and pension benefits are, in some cases, excessive. There is no rational justification why taxpayers should be obligated to pay 90% pensions to any kind of public employee, especially when the average citizen is working much longer for their own retirement. Ten years ago virtually all police officers and firefighters in California received retirement packages equivalent to 60% pay after 30 years as early as age 50, which was already very generous.

Also, there has never been any documented evidence that enhancing public safety pension benefits has improved recruitment or retention. On the contrary, the massive increases in pension benefits has encouraged the most senior, experienced public safety employees to retire early, since there is no incentive to work longer than 30 years. In the past it was common for many experienced employees to continue to work beyond their early fifties as they could continue to accrue pension benefits. For example, under the old 2 at 50 formula a police officer could choose to work, say, 35 years in order to boost their pension to 70% of pay. But now we have cops and firefighters hit their maximum pension benefit after just a 30 year career, and therefore have no incentive to continue working. That results in even more vacancies. The City of Ventura is already complaining that they have unfilled public safety positions, but once the enhanced pension benefit kicks in they will get hit with a flood of retirements. The result is shortened working careers and cities that have to support pension and healthcare benefits for a growing number of retirees, making it even more difficult to come up with funding for existing positions.

Another problem with these outrageous pension benefits is that it significantly raises employee costs. That is why a lot of departments can no longer afford to fill vacant positions. It also becomes far cheaper to avoid hiring and have existing employees instead work massive amounts of overtime, since overtime is cheaper than hiring more cops and firefighters. But it also results in fatigue and burnout. You end up with overly tired cops and firefighters who can become a danger to themselves and the public.

Naturally, the union will always fight to get as much pay and benefits as possible for their members. The SEUI is now pressing your city to grant a 35% increase in pension benefits to their members. But that doesn't mean giving it to them is fiscally responsible, nor do the taxpayers get anything in return other than higher costs for the same services. If librarians demanded 100% pay at retirement does that mean your city should automatically give it to them? And does it mean that those who are opposed to 100% pension benefits for librarians hate librarians and don't value libraries? And does it make sense to slash lay off clerks and slash services to the elderly, disabled and homeless, and raise taxes in order to grant unnecessary pension increases to a select group of public employees?

Point of order to Bubba: 62 percent of the voters wanted a 1/4 cent sales tax increase to pay for public safety. That was the one and only sales tax increase we have asked for. It was a measure requiring dedicated funds and just narrowly missed passage. The new measure, if it even goes to the voters, would not require the funds be dedicated and thus requires a simple majority passage.

The firefighters have put off their benefits. I don't believe any of the council members who voted for this did so out of political obligation. It was a business decision they made in order to attract top help.

Some in our community agreed with this; others did not.

But the fact remains that we do have a large deficit to make up even without the pension increase in the mix now.

Bubba, would you suggest Ventura slash all pay and benefits to public safety to make up for it? I hear a lot of complaining from you but no real solutions. It's easy to be a keyboard critic. Much harder to be the one making the actual decisions.

I think that public safety needs to be part of the solution. I've already gone on record by saying that I see no way out of this without some form of revenue increases, although that is not a desirable way to solve this problem. But public safety in particular should be offering concessions since they have been getting the lion's share of pay and benefit increases in recent years and are among the highest compensated public employees in the nation. And an agreement to delay their 50% pension increase is not a serious concession. For starters, they should offer ongoing concessions worth, at a minimum, the value of the pension increase in perpetuity. That means at least $1.2 million in annual savings, which could take the form of a modest pay cut, or perhaps increasing the employee share of pension costs to offset the increase. But since I believe the actual cost of this pension benefit will be much higher than $1.2 million annually, the union should be prepared to offer even more once the real cost of this pension increase is determined.

Next, all employee unions should also be willing to take pay or benefit cuts to trim at least 5% off of payroll costs. These savings should be realized through ACTUAL reductions in costs, as opposed to savings through early retirement incentives or attrition. Going forward wages should be frozen for at least two years for all positions, and there should be a hard hiring freeze except for vital positions. Any vacancies through attrition or retirement not deemed vital will be closed out.

Next, each department will be responsible for finding, at a minimum, 10% cost savings outside of payroll costs. No departments are to be excluded, including public safety. Non-swown employees making over $150,000 per year will take a temporary 10% pay cut for two years and will have their pay frozen for the same period of time. City issued vehicles will no longer be issued to public workers unless there is a compelling justification.

Next, the city will look to see if it has assets or surplus properties that can be sold to help raise funds during the financial crisis. Policies will be implemented to reduce energy consumption, such as powering down computers and lighting during evenings and weekends. The city will also look to outsource non-essential services if cost savings can be identified.

Next, the city should review programs to see if there are any that can be temporarily, or even permanently eliminated. This may also involve some layoffs, though this should be done sparingly. There should also be a full review of the city's workers comp and disability costs to see if there is any abuse of the system so that costs can be contained.

Next, the city needs to become more business friendly and look for opportunities to add retail establishments, since they city will benefit from the corresponding sales tax revenues. The city might look to creating business improvement districts, or using redevelopment funds to provide incentives for business investment. Some projects will need to be fastracked to speed up the typical reviews that can often delay projects for years. That doesn't mean that the city should not due its due diligence, but they need to cut the bureaucracy that results in unnecessary delays. The city also needs to look at acquiring state and federal grant funds for infrastructure projects, and other types of matching funds to supplement revenues.

And last, some public services will need to be cut. That might include things like, as has been suggested, closing libraries. There will also have to be higher fees for city services, like getting permits. The city should also look to increase revenues by increasing the cost of parking tickets, or by installing more parking meters.

I bet if you implemented the above suggestions you could probably close the bulk of your budget gap in short order with only modest cuts in employee compensation. But it only works if everything is on the table.

One more thing... voters rejected previous sales tax increases during a good economy. In a bad economy with high unemployment they will be even less likely to vote for a tax increase. Your poll also discovered a sharp drop in support for a tax increase when it was combined with an additional 1% increase from the state. My prediction is that the tax increase will not pass, even at 50%. I recommend that you assume that the sales tax increase will not pass and start cutting costs now, because delays will make future cuts even more painful.

I just put up a new post. All those business development factors you listed are already being implemented but in this economy, we are unlikely to grow our revenues enough to do much good right now.

Selling surplus property is being considered as well. Our school district did this.

Note that in this town, any developer incentives are resoundingly criticized by the very, very vocal anti-development crowd here. Look at the post by blogger Sespeangel on the view task force entry. I'm surprised you haven't commented there.

Recovering the costs of services by increasing fees has been even more controversial. Even the slightest fee increase creates an uproar that fills council chambers. Ridiculous.

I am really tired of extreme points of view right now.

Also, the state sales tax question was NOT factored into the polling. I am not sure where you came up with that. I have the entire report sitting here.

Here is the problem:
In Ventura, you have way more liberals than in the rest of the county. Frankly, no offense to the city of Ventura, but I think for the same price I would rather live in comparable homes, or smaller ones, in Santa Barbara or Oxnard before I would move to Ventura. Even the Oxnard side of the Marina is nicer in my opinion.

You can check this, but I'm fairly sure that, per capita, people are making more money in both of cities over Ventura. So they can get away with passing liberal tax increases under the guise of promoting firefighter recruitment. They too will face the problems of Ventura.

What is the claim exactly: that there is a shortage in firefighters, or in the funds to hire and pay for existing and new firefighters?

Data showing a problem in recruitment demonstrates a problem in the city leadership all around. There is no one person party or group to blame. It's all of Ventura's fault.

If you prescribe to liberal views, then you must know that each individual must be willing to sacrifice for the sake of society. That means this problem goes all the way to Mrs.Johnson who retired 30 years ago, and still receives the same check every month. Everyone has to sacrifice, and everyone should be blamed including political parties, lobbying organizations, and labor groups.

In my opinion, and I consider this to be the conservative viewpoint, you can't solve this kind of problem with increased government spending. The spending causes tax increases, which when they escalate to crises levels are immediately passed based on fear. We live in California. There are fires here. If you live in a city, or you or your neighbors own anything heats up past your normal body temperature, you may cause a fire. If you understand that, then hiring firemen should be the problem of the fire chief of your city, and not the problem of the citizens. We are classically liberal in the sense that we have elected representative officials in government and state funded fire protection and policing of our citizenry. We should be modern conservatives, and say that it is the responsibility of the people in charge of our safety to work out disputes when it comes to labor agreements. There should be no firefighters' union. Upton Sinclair would not find abuse, exploitation, and volatile work conditions in firehouses, and that is not the result of the union. There should be fair wages, and they would be determined by the amount of available personnel, and the need for fire fighters compared to the net funds of the city/county to make sure that they stay competitive, and safe at the same time you may have volunteer fire programs, and other varieties of alternative fire prevention methods. If you're city happens to have less money to spend, then you should spend less in other areas that are less necessary, if that action is deemed appropriate. Why do you not believe in this?

on a side note, I tried all kinds of HTML tags the first time, and the bold was the only one that worked, and I figured italics would work, for some reason underline doesn't work, found out breaks work, but size, color, font, all of those are disabled. That's censorship! Again really great discussion here, and very civil.

It's OK for conservatives to pile on firefighters but they overlook the other causes of our economic meltdown. Eight years of bad policies on the national level and the useless war in Iraq:

Taxpayers in California will pay $83.1 billion for total Iraq war spending approved to date. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

34,208,306 People with Health Care for One Year OR
148,087,070 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year OR
1,484,827 Public Safety Officers for One year OR
1,174,122 Music and Arts Teachers for One Year OR
12,490,710 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR
248,783 Affordable Housing Units OR
31,068,375 Children with Health Care for One Year OR
9,941,768 Head Start Places for Children for One Year OR
1,193,726 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR
1,049,740 Port Container Inspectors for One year

again, another attempt to blame the executive branch, who can only sign the budget rather than the democrats who were writing the budget? And 700 billion in relief could be spent on 87 times that instead of saving doomed, wrothless jobs and mortgages

$700 billion in relief or $600 billion to kill people.

What a choice.

The median income family in Los Angeles, California paid $1,173 in federal income taxes in 2007.

Here is how that money was spent:
Military $495
Health $259
Interest on Non-military Debt $120
Anti-Poverty Programs $102
Education, Training & Social Services $51
Government & Law Enforcement $46
Housing & Community Development $39
Environment, Energy & Science $31
Transportation, Commerce & Agriculture $18
International Affairs $12

get rid of health, poverty, housing and social services, and you can cut my taxes by about 400 bucks, or not raise taxes and use the 400+ dollars for firefighters, or whatever they need more. You are incredibly off topic.

We can't "unspend" the war money from Iraq and Afghanistan. So you're argument is completely moot. We're talking about raising taxes and spending in this years budget.

"$700 billion in relief or $600 billion to kill people." You make it sound like we can reverse time and use the money we already spent to help "stimulate"(even though it will only prolong the time it will take for us to hit the bottom of the cycle and return to an upward trend) the economy. If you're upset about spending 600, you should be 7/6s as mad about Obama trying to spend 700.

In my opinion if you're unhappy about the war, and the money spent, then you should prescribe to the conservative idea of keeping government small to decrease the negative impact on non defense related industry, or pay the price of inflation for an extended period of time, before the economy has another up turn.

On another note, you are completely off topic. We're talking about ventura city's inability to hire firefighters, and our state budget.

You certainly have the freedom to post here and read the blog, and comment, but if you're going to comment, make it relevant. Otherwise you're wasting your's and everyone else's time. We all know the war in Iraq was very expensive, and I'm sure a majority of people have decided that it was a bad idea, but even liberals believe that we shouldn't leave the country before they have a stable enough military/security situation to prevent genocide and anarchy in our absence.

If you're upset about bush expanding government, why do you have a double standard for Obama?

Well, to be accurate, the original topic was cuts to education spending. So everyone is off topic it would appear.

Interesting figures above, though. $495 to the military and $51 to education and social services.

I don't know anybody who is HAPPY about the war, do you haha?

Marie:

Why is it so expensive to "educate" a child while 30 years ago it wasn't?

Why do homeschooling parents do it for quite a bit less and their kids go to the the Ivy League?

Yes, everyone is off topic, but he did come out of left field, and just threw out "scary" numbers, that are out of context, and the math only works if you only want one of those things, instead of figuring out what services you would get if you broke it all down.

Happy about the war? I'm not sure about happy, but less objectionable. I personally like having Iran surrounded by our military. It is definitely a buffer zone for Israel and America which keeps the war overseas instead of here at home. I don't believe that we haven't been hit again because of the Homeland Security Dept., but economics. If it is cheaper and easier to hit military targets in the middle east for the people who have the will and means to attack us, they will attack there first. I think we are just as safe as we were before Sept 11th, but the war really has nothing to do with that terrible day.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. became the only super power in the world. China is starting to gain a lot of economic power, but have a huge standing army, but inferior air and sea technology, along with older designed, less efficient ballistic missiles. Some Neo-Conservative believe it was our time to make an impact in the area and scare the bejesus out of Iran, and It would have worked much better if he hadn't been subverted by the democratic party, and "embeded" journalists.

I dont know how education and social services are lumped together. And in reality when LA county has a 50% dropout rate, spending more money wont solve that problem, and social services have less oversight than Enron did.

But the fact remains, if you are upset about 600 billion spent by the previous administration why is it ok for the new administration to get 700 to spend? No one wants to answer the double standard question.

I'm game for talking about the cost of education. First I'd like to discuss the hot topic issue of per pupil funding, and how California compares to other states. I continually hear this claim repeated over and over that California ranks near the bottom in per pupil funding, usually given in the range of 47th out of 50 states. It troubles me that so many people feel the need to exaggerate this problem in order to make the case for increased education funding. The truth is that California ranks about in the middle in per pupil funding when compared to other states. It bothers me that there is a coordinated effort to deceive the public into believing that California ranks far lower in the level of funding per student than is actually the case. Before we can have an honest debate on the topic we should at least have ground rules that says we need to stick to actual facts, instead of emotional arguments and fabricated statistics.

The non-partisan California Legislative Analysts Office has examined California per pupil funding for the 2008-09 fiscal year and published the following information about education funding (see the link):

- The 2008-09 California budget provides $11,626 in funding per pupil per based on proposed K-12 funding from all sources divided by estimated daily average attendance.
- Compared to other states California ranked 25th in per pupil funding in the 2003-04 fiscal year (the most recent data available), spending slightly less than the national average.
- Adjusting for inflation, per pupil funding in California has remained relatively flat over the past decade.

I'm open to having a debate on whether the current level of funding is adequate, but we should be able to agree to the facts I listed above as a starting point. So please don't start your argument by using the common tactic of claiming that we have been slashing education funding or that California ranks 47th in per pupil funding, as those types of claims are not backed up by the facts.

Why is homeschooling cheaper? I would likely guess that a major reason is that the teacher isn't paid. Why are some ( but not all so stop pretending ) very successful? Because the parents obviously care very much for their child and their education.

Most people think Education Week's per-pupil rankings are a more accurate measure of what is going on. They also use a wider range of data.

Education Week applies the Comparable Wage Index to the data. It drops California to 47th at $7,571 per pupil, well below the national average of $8,973 per pupil. The CWI uses up-to-date information to provide a type of cost-of-living adjustment based on regional variations in salaries. Although the CWI directly considers only one source of educational expense (personnel), payroll costs constitute more than three-quarters of school district expenditures.

So I don't think we're going to agree on rankings.

Overall, Education Week gives us a grade of C but an F in school funding.

I agree homeschooling is a wonderful option for some families. Very few have the dedication/means to pull it off, though.

Last year's presidential debates were pretty informative. There was one memorable question that sticks out in my mind from Bob Shieffer in the 3rd debate. I thought it was worth evaluating closer, so I'll put it to all the "more money" crowd.

Below is the question I pulled from the transcripts of the third debate moderated by Bob Shieffer (Link above):

SCHIEFFER: "Let's stop there, because I want to get in a question on education and I'm afraid this is going to have to be our last question, gentlemen.

The question is this: the U.S. spends more per capita than any other country on education. Yet, by every international measurement, in math and science competence, from kindergarten through the 12th grade, we trail most of the countries of the world.

The implications of this are clearly obvious. Some even say it poses a threat to our national security.

Do you feel that way and what do you intend to do about it?"

First, Is Shieffer correct that the US spends more per capita than any other country on earth?

Second: Why are we under-performing with so much spending?

I think using "adjusted" numbers is misleading. If you compare actual dollars spent per pupil against other states then California ranks right in the middle. I'm not saying that that level of spending is necessarily good, but I am saying that its a fact. The CLA data is consistent with data published by the National Education Association and with data used in the well publicized 2005 Rand report.

By contrast, Education Week manipulates its numbers by making cost of living adjustments using a 1990 federal "geographic cost of education index", which drops California in their rankings to near bottom. It also bothers me that Education Week is adjusting numbers using an index that is almost two decades old. Nor is there agreement among education experts whether the use of cost adjustments is even appropriate.

But in absolute dollars, without "adjustments", California ranks about in the middle nationwide. Those that regularly cite Education Week rankings should be more honest with the public that they are using adjusted numbers. If the argument is that California needs a higher level of funding relative to other states because of cost of living, then that should be part of the discussion. But those little details tend to be left out and the public is given a false impression about the real level of school funding. For instance, "adjusted" numbers are published that claim per pupil funding is just $7,500 per student, when in real dollars we actually spend over $11,000 per student. If you believe that $11,000 per student is insufficient then say so, but don't try to convince the public that we spending less than $8,000 per student when that is not the case.

If that is the game we are going to pay then, using the same reasoning, our state legislators are no longer the highest paid in the nation. Instead of legislators publishing their actual salaries of $116,000 per year perhaps they could instead use the same cost of living adjustments to claim that they only make $75,400 per year. And Chevron, which is based in California, could adjust their quarterly profits using the same index from $7.9 billion to $5.1 billion. Pretty misleading, eh?

Scott, I think one of our problems as Americans is we don't value education as much as other countries do. I see parental involvement as key and I think the U.S. lags in that area. We are working on a program here in Ventura to remedy that and it's very exciting.

This school district is a pioneer in many areas of alternative education. We are also being very proactive in trying to solve our budget issues. Note the article in the Star today. I have tremendous admiration for our superintendent.

Here's a quote from someone whose work I admire:

“The fundamental issue in American education — I say this after 40 years of having read and studied and written about the problems — is one that is demographic.� Poor children, Diane Ravitch said, simply face too many problems outside the classroom. “If you don’t buttress whatever happens in school with social and economic changes that give kids a better chance in life and put their families on a more stable footing, then schools alone are not going to solve the problems of poor student performance. There has to be a range of social and economic strategies to support and enhance whatever happens in school.�

Bubba, Education Week changed this year to the Comparable Wage Index. I do think cost of living needs to be factored in. Obviously it costs more to educate kids in areas where the cost of living is higher.

marie,
that is a great quote!

It is interesting though, because as you use it in an argument to raise spending and taxes, obviously if just giving the money to the poor students' families(welfare) had made any difference in the rate of graduation/dropout/performance it would have worked for the past 60 years, and we shouldn't be in this mess now would we?

There are many programs out there to address the issues of families who do not value education. Our district does it one of two ways: A) The Parent Involvement Committee that has recently launched and is already doing great work and B) Neighborhoods for Learning.

NFL is funded by First 5 tobacco tax dollars and is the program conservatives love to hate. But they are working with impoverished families through early childhood learning and other programs designed to teach young families to value education and help young children develop good lifelong study habits. I have seen this work firsthand and my daughter has been working with these programs for years now through NFL, HeadStart and JumpStart.

I think programs that involve active participation by society to encourage learning are great, but if it is the job of the community, they should do it for FREE! Why should my tax dollars be used to teach families the importance of education. Society has deemed it illegal for children not to go to school, and that is as far as government should interfere. If the community feels like its children are suffering, then they should come together to help the PTA or whatever other programs that don't take taxpayer money. And what ever happened to teaching our kids about work ethic and the fulfillment that comes with a job well done. If we realize that our country needs factory workers as much as we need doctors, why don't we promote vocational education as much as we do "higher learning" and "pre-k"(which is glorified daycare)?

Scott:

Have been following this thread with interest at a respectable cyber-distance, and until now, have resisted the temptation to chime-in.

But, you have cut right to the heart of it... Bob Schieffer's question about the efficacy of public education in the United States, it is the ONLY one worth asking AND answering, well..

Back and forth arguments about the relative ranking of total educational spending dollars, per-capita spending by States, adjusted or not for inflation related indices, and the penultimate numerical abomination, statistically neutered and egalitarian-leveled test scores, brought to us by "No Child Left Behind" completely miss the educational excellence mark.

It's kind of like the Jeff Goldblum line in Jurasic Park, where he tells Sir Richard Attenborough, the park owner that, "..You guys are spending all this money on figuring out HOW to clone dinosaurs, when you should be asking yourself the question SHOULD we clone them.."

And any of us who watched that movie, saw the terrible consequences, albeit fictionally, in lost life, property and treasure which resulted from the failure of decision-makers to ask and effectively answer that kind of existential question…

Marie:

As a parent of two children, who now are young adults entering the workplace, I acknowledge and applaud your work on the Ventura Educational Foundation, and the work of other dedicated parents and supporters of public education.

You are dead right that informed, caring and resourced parents are key, especially when they successfully support and partner with high-performing teachers, and that rarer, breed, truly courageous, fiscally efficacious and visionary superintendents.

Further, you are also correct in arguing the central role of public-private partnerships when it comes to increasing the outcomes-based performance of public education. In our case, my wife (who comes from an entire family of teachers), and I were interested, involved and active parents supporting our two children during their school years. And that support included several years of outdoor family-fun, gaining respect for conservation values and team-work building, by serving as Boy Scout leaders and joining our sons on many outings, field-trips and camporees.

In the final analysis, each of us, in our own way, and in accordance with the roles we choose, are responsible for the outcomes of public education. Among the most important choices we make is the choice of our elected representatives. We MUST choose our elected representatives wisely, especially those who make political life and death decisions on school funding, school performance and school outcomes.

Political leaders who understand, internalize and act boldly to integrate the following five vital dimensions of public education are worthy of our respect, and require our political support.

In my opinion, those five vital dimensions are: engaging caring and active parents, recruiting and retaining adequately resourced, high-performing teachers, resourcing visionary school district superintendents who are willing to take bold risks in supporting high-performing teachers when it comes to the difficult choices, and finally fostering a slew of public-private partnerships focused on and highly supportive of an outcomes-based approach.to public education.

In my judgment, such political leaders are few and far between. But when they surface we should support them and join them as they become the proverbial political Moses, helping to lead us all, parents, students, teachers, superintendents and non-governmental educational support organizations to the Promised Land of educational excellence.

NostraDemus

I read through that entire post trying to find out why you are anti-cloning and I found zero facts.

Here are some facts:

1. Dinosaurs rock.

2. Cloning is awesome.

3. Dinosaurs + cloning = totally awesome!

I support cloning dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs Rocks:

Thanks, ever so-much for providing ample written proof that the extinction of dinosaurs resulted from natural selection....

Based on your above fatuous argument, the entire scientific world has ample proof that that Darwin's principle of "Natural selection" is alive and well...

Clearly, your above argument falls within the ambit of Merriam-Webster's third definition of the term "dinosaurs", referenced in the URL above

Ciao Sauropodia

NostraDemus

Look, you came out swinging against Dinosaurs only to be stunned by my defense, using FACTS. Just because you look bad for being against Dinosaurs doesn't mean you should resort to name calling.

You are in a deep hole. Stop digging! Unless you find some Dinosaur bones to clone!

Thanks for the nice comments, ND.

Just a quick heads up. The radio station am 640 has VERY frequent updates on the progress of the budget today.

Hm. This is really fresh idea of the design of the site! I seldom met such in Internet. Good Work!.
I am from Portugal and too bad know English, tell me right I wrote the following sentence: "Airfare cheap airline tickets, airfares, airplane flights, plane trips, discount fares."

:P Thanks in advance. Hurley.