Greg Yeoman speaks on City's financial situation.
This evening, at the city council meeting, Pat Woods told council that the Superintendent of Pensions was still not satisfied with the city’s pension reform recommendations. He presented a report to council that suggested the way the city had attacked the huge pension deficit in the past was the wrong way (could they have been acting like desperate gamblers?). He implied that some of these suggestions should be implemented by the end of the month if there is no movement in the Legislature. He said that the Pension Plan is in serious danger of collapse (some citizens {and I’m one} have been saying that for years, since the all day teach-in at city hall in 2009 but no one was listening). Mr. Yoemans spoke on the cost of borrowing the money to pay the deficit (doubling down?).
Mr. Woods suggested a few things that might be done to cut the city’s capital budget to pay the deficit:
1. Raising the employee contribution level and raising the tax rate were mentioned, but that’s not the preferred solution.
2. Close out the east and west libraries in their present locations to save rent and move them to other locations.
3. Close community centres.
4. Cut out all “Grant” programs.
5. Tax payers to pay user fees and solid waste collection fees.
6. Tax payers responsible for clearing their own sidewalks.
7. Another early retirement program for city workers (that’s been the subject of a lot of testimony at the Pension Board trial – bad idea because it costs the city money for the buyouts, decreases contributions to the plan, and increases the payouts
from the pension plan).
8. Replace aging water meters for commercial customers.
9. Sell 49% of SJ Energy and use the money to pay for water treatment.
10. Stop fluoridating water.
11. Review value for money of city operations.
12. Decide minimum acceptable service levels to residents.
13. Reduce road repairs (is that even possible?).
14. Offer reduced levels of servces to areas outside the PLAN SJ designated growth areas.
I’m offering this from memory, without checking any documentation or the podcast, so I hope they don’t sue me!
