Posted on April 21, 2008 at 10:39 pm by WTH

Looks like the California city of Vallejo is closer every day to bankruptcy. And one of the chief reasons is the unfunded mandates forced upon it by the unions that contract with the city workers.

City staff members have been unable to come up with a detailed, long-term financial plan because negotiations with the police and fire unions are still ongoing. The city is asking for steep concessions from the unions, whose members are among the highest paid in the Bay Area and whose salaries comprise about 74 percent of the city’s budget.

Naturally, the unions couldn’t care less about good fiscal policy and what is right for the people of Vallejo. They are too greedy for that.

Negotiations with the unions are not going well, according to city officials. The parties met three times last week and the city is expected to look at a proposal from the unions on Monday, but no meetings are scheduled after that, Davis said.

Yeah, I’ll bet “not going well” is an understatement.

Here is the reason why unions are anathema to good government. Unions are not interested in what’s best for the people, they are only interested in high salaries, whether the city has the revenue or not, for their members. Good government, good fiscal policy…. well those are things no union cares about.

Government workers should never be allowed to be under a union contract. This is perfect proof of that maxim, too.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 10:39 pm and is filed under Warner Todd Huston. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Union Costs Help Lead to City’s Bankruptcy”

Mark Schoenfeld Says:
April 26th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Local Governments newest approach, at least in California to undermine Proposition 13, Prop 62 and voter mandated requirements is to attempt to hold public hearing to impose a parcel tax to collect additional fees to assist the City in complying with unfunded state mandates. Usually nobody complains from a legal standpoint so they get away with it or if someone does complain, with a legitimate legal argument, they craft their ordinance to please the objector and exempt him from the general provisions of the ordinance. (Least line of economic resistance). This time, my city appears to propose sending a letter to all property owners, as if that satisfies the requirements of Prop 13 and it’s 2/3 requirement to impose a parcel tax. This will be interesting.