Wednesday, June 3, 2009
What's Up with Berkeley?
Business / People / Politics Robert Gammon — Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 6:54 AM
While the state and other cities are struggling big-time and talking about firing hundreds of public employees, the City of Berkeley is in such good shape that it's not planning to lay off a single person. According to the Trib, Mayor Tom Bates credits City Manager Phil Kamlarz for keeping the city out of serious financial trouble at a time when other Bay Area cities, including Oakland and San Francisco, are facing huge problems. Sure, Berkeley is planning to eliminate some jobs, but the city plans to make the cuts through attrition, and by transferring employees around. In other words, no one is going to be out of work because of the economic downturn. That's remarkable, when you think about it, and if Bates is right, then Berkeley may be the prime example of the importance of having a competent city administrator running the show.
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There are four main reasons Berkeley is in good financial shape, and only one of them is affected by the City Manager. First, the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories pump massive amounts of money into the community and help give it steady property values. Second, the active citizenry of Berkeley, many of them attracted by the University, have created a vibrant, in some places beautiful community, starting with the work of the Hillside Club in the late 19th Century, that also attracts people and sustains property values. Third, those active citizens have supported a diverse and comparatively high tax structure that goes about as far as any local government in California has gone. Between the additional parcel taxes on property and the diversity of types of taxes (utility, business license, real property transfer, property, sales, etc.) Berkeley has a stronger tax base than most other local governments. Finally, Berkeley has maintained a policy of directing one-time funds and part of potentially volatile sources such as real property transfer tax to capital projects that can be scaled back when times get tough. Only the latter can be credited to the City Manager. There are, however, a lot of important management issues in the City that are not so well handled, such as the use of across-the-board cuts without proper examination of the effects on program delivery, and negotiating to union contracts that give salary increases that are above the rate of inflation and are unsustainable in the long term given the City's likely future revenue.
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Berkeley is in good financial shape because we have passed many, many taxes to support services. A typical Berkeley property tax bill would be almost 50% less if the add on taxes were not included. Berkeley is an affluent city with a median income of $93K and comparatively few low income residents.
In Oakland the median income is $44K and 20% are below the poverty level.
Money makes a difference.
Robert, you may want to investigate a little bit closer rather than take Bates & Kamlarz at their word. For example, why does Berkeley have one of the highest per-capita ratio of employees to citizens in the state of CA? Was giving the members of SEIU 1021 a 5% raise last year a "competent decision"? Did you know City of Berkeley employees make 0% contributions to their retirements, unheard of almost anywhere else? And that Calpers will be hitting all state & municipal employers with up to a 12% increase in the contribution level in the next two years? Is maintaining its own sign shop to create signs for Berkeley streets the wisest use of the Citizens' money, when that's something that could easily be contracted out? The Citizens of Berkeley have been extremely generous with approving tax after tax both special and increases, and it mostly goes to keep up the best paid municipal workforce in the State if not the country, who will retire in much better shape than many of the Citizens. While our infrastructure crumbles--take a look at the streets: Parker between College & Telegraph a complete mess, Ellsworth from Dwight to Ashby the same story, dangerous for bikers potholes everywhere, and they want to raise refuse fees? Instead of just reguritating press releases and posting other papers' stories on your blog, why not do some real investigative journalism? This is area is ripe for exploration. The real story is that the Citizens just aren't aware of how incompetent the City is being run which is why they keep approving tax increases to fatten Kamlarz and his SEIU cronies wallets.
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