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After a disease is discovered and isolated, medical researchers search for the first person who got sick to hopefully provide a clue about how the disease was spread. That single individual is always known by one name: Patient Zero.

If Sacramento leaders take forensic awareness of the state’s overwhelming pension and obligation costs and search for how it all began, they’ll trace them straight to Ventura County – the Patient Zero of California’s $500 billion (and growing) unfunded liabilities.

This is because of the “Ventura Decision” – a unanimous 1997 California Supreme Court ruling that dramatically altered the way so-called “37 Act” counties tabulate pensionable salary, expanding it to include bonuses, health care costs, uniform allowances and other forms of pay.

The original case was filed by Ventura County deputy sheriffs arguing that in addition to salary, several additional items (like selling back accrued vacation time), must be counted in every individual pension. The ruling was made despite many years of collective bargaining that this compensation would not be treated as pensionable.

Overnight, the ruling spawned a… Read More

Tuesday’s news that term-limited State Senate president Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg will be stepping down after this year’s session leaves me with mixed feelings.

To be clear — his legislative leadership has been a disaster for the State of California. He has championed more and bigger government — higher taxes and more regulation while the state’s liabilities have skyrocketed. Steinberg has worked hard to drag the Senate even further to the left than it would have been on the natural.

So why do I have mixed feeling? Well, to be frank, Steinberg’s political leadership has had a Keystone Coppish feeling to it. But for the vast… Read More

“Although the city is recovering, we are and will continue to have difficulty attracting and retaining experienced and skilled employees if we don’t achieve a solution now.” Palo Alto City Employee and SEIU Local 521 Chapter Chair, Palo Alto Online, January 14, 2014

This refrain has been heard for over 20 years. It plays out in every city and county in California, whereby unionized workforces claim that if their employers don’t pay as much as the neighboring city, all the good employees will leave, and nobody will want to work for them.

The problem with this, of course, is that as soon as one city raised their wages and benefits to make their jobs more attractive than the neighboring city, then the neighboring city had to endure the clamor from their unions to keep pace. The result? We have workers in Palo Alto, whose average pay and benefits were $139,907 during 2012, claiming they don’t make enough money, and so they’re considering going on strike (ref. “Palo Alto calls impasse in union talks,” January 14, 2014,… Read More

“The core reason [Proposition 30] brought people together was a belief in schools and universities and the capacity of government to make wise investments that benefit all of us.” San Jose Mercury News, November 6, 2012.

The above quote well summarizes the hue and cry made to the voters by Governor Brown to convince them to approve two “temporary” tax increases a little over a year ago. At some events, the Governor even brought along Sutter, California’s beloved “First Dog,” to convince voters to tax themselves, even though California already has some of the highest taxes in the nation. The voters, intent on protecting public education and trusting promises that the tax increases would only be temporary, approved Proposition 30.

Now the Legislative Analyst is projecting a $5.6 billion surplus for the coming budget year, significantly more than state financial experts predicted. We are all grateful that schools will stay open and those in need will continue to be served, but there are other priorities that the Legislature seems slow, or even unwilling, to address. Certainly, more revenue will make crafting a budget easier, but at… Read More

Opponents of the push for a heavily subsidized downtown Sacramento basketball arena are closer to forcing key city insiders to tell what they know about how much taxpayers actually will have to pay for the project.

Last week,Sacramento Superior Court Judge Eugene Balononissued a tentative ruling in the lawsuit targeting the arena deal orchestrated by Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star. It supported petitioners’ requests that they be allowed to depose Sacramento Councilman Kevin McCarty and Sacramento Economic Development Director Jim Rhinehartabout undisclosed dealings between city officials and the new Kings ownership group to help it buy the team.

The Sacramento Investor Group,led by tech entrepreneur… Read More

Today the following piece, authored by yours truly, appeared at the Human Events website…

Billions of people would like to live in America.

At this moment some 4 million people are patiently following the rules, filling out the paperwork, paying the fees, and getting interviews in order to get their chance to immigrate to America legally.

These 4 million, however, have no interest group supporting their plight. Aliens who cut in line are depriving millions of other people of their dream. Most of those legal immigrants are people of color.

Not answered is a fundamental injustice.

What does… Read More

Public employee unions own Sacramento.

To be more specific — public employee unions spent vast sums of money in political campaigns, almost exclusively for Democrats — and in doing so have succeeded in electing super-majorities in the State Senate and the State Assembly who will do their bidding. Oh yes, they also are the biggest funders of statewide officeholders — most notably Governor Jerry Brown.

The iron-lock that the unions have on the legislature, from time to time, is highlighted when the unions issue a death sentence for legislation that is just common sense, but not in their world where they can order bills… Read More

Several months ago my brother-in-law, a High School History teacher, was explaining to me the frustrations he has felt over the past few years dealing with the teachers union. Like many Republican teachers he and my sister, also a high school teacher, routinely saw money deducted from their pay and given to political causes with which they disagreed. Since our casual conversation he found the California Teacher Freedom Project through the California Public Policy Center and was asked to describe his experience in a column. The California Teacher Freedom Project has become a great resource for teachers who find themselves in a similar situation.

Below is the column that was published in the Ventura County Star by my brother-in-law Gabriel Enriquez on January 5th:

Teachers Pay to Protect Sex Offenders over Child Safety

In 2012 the California Assembly rejected a bill to give school boards the final authority to dismiss teachers accused of “serious and egregious” conduct, including abusing a child with sex, drugs, or violence. This proposal came after LAUSD agreed to pay teacher,… Read More