Friday, February 29, 2008

Bigger Cities Join in Abnegation


ab·ne·ga·tion (#b.n2-g"ZshMn) n. Self-denial.
Sacramento is facing a budget shortfall of $48 million to $58 million next fiscal year. The city's general fund budget is about $450 million.

Solution?:
Under the city's proposed "voluntary separation program," full-time employees with at least five years of continuous city service are eligible, with priority given to workers who have been at the city for 10 years or more. The city is offering one week of pay for each year worked, but the amount cannot exceed $50,000.
...To pay for the buy-outs, the city will us up to $7 million from its reserves, according to the report. The city anticipates it will save up to $13 million in the first year and $20 million in future years.
----
Source: Sacramento Bee

Draw down the reserves $7m to save $13m. Here's an idea; lay them off. Be sure to read the responses.

28 comments:

Property Flopper said...

Can I be the FIRST to say that the last picture was much nicer to look at?

Property Flopper said...

Couple of comments

1) It is much easier to have people leave voluntarily, layoffs would lead to disrimination suits, regardless of who gets laid off. It's just how civil service works.

2) 1 week per year? Not likely to draw many people. Leave a job you've had for 10 years to get a pathetic severence? Who are they kidding? Offer one month per year if you're serious.

3) It's never the ones you want. The really good employees will be the ones to take the payoff - they'll easily jump to a better job. The people you'd want to get rid of know they're useless and will dig in and hold on.

Property Flopper said...

Better recomendation - Do layoffs, but have "Cindy" deliver the pink slips. Might have people happy to get the notice.

Rob Dawg said...

LOL! "Cindi likes me better than you! Na na na nah na!"

Seriously, yes it is the loss of competency and corporate history that do the damage.

Casey Serin said...

I'll take credit for singlehandedly adding around $1,000,000 to Sacramento's debt. Another win-win for me!

Anyone need some herbal Viagra, by any chance?

Funny Circus Bears said...

Exactly. Lay them off.

The only place where that is considered untouchable is the public trough, which now exists soley to enrich public employees.

Bakersfield Bubble said...

I love the comments.

This is my favorite, probably written by a police man:

"I live in College Greens and I never see the police patrolling. So cuts to the police really don't make a difference to me. They will affect neighborhoods in South Sac and North Highlands where, without police, anarchy would rule"

Lou Minatti said...

I've been on the receiving end of the layoff chain and I know how much it sucks. But when prison guards are making six figures, something is wacked.

I'll wager that budgets can easily be chopped 10% while delivering the same services.

Akubi said...

Somewhere I read today that 1% of the U.S. population is incarcerated. WTF?

Akubi said...

Plus nearly 10% of Americans (more than that if you factor in women since men seem to stick with porn and beer) are on anti-depressants.
Yet Arnold and George W tell us the economy is just fine.

w said...

It's okay anti-depressants are a placebo.

Ogg the Caveman said...

Or look at it this way: Prisons cost every non-incarcerated man, woman, and child something like $220/year.

Akubi said...

Something is terribly, terribly wrong.

Akubi said...

And the degree of terrible wrongness will be saved for later.

Bill in NC said...

We spend that money because we can afford it, and have made the choice as a society to execute few people compared to earlier decades.

Let's be blunt - prior to the 1960s, we didn't need multi-million Supermax facilities, because that class of felon met a quick end on the gallows or in the gas chamber.

>Prisons cost every non-incarcerated man, woman, and child something like $220/year.

Lou Minatti said...

How many people in prison shouldn't be here in the first place?

Northern Renter said...

Look people! (I just feel like ranting against everybody today, for no particular reason)

You can whine and moan about the high costs of prisons and the damage that it is doing to your pocketbooks. You can bitch about how much money prison guards make for routinely dealing with shitheads that your nightmares haven't even featured. You can complain that the US has an inordinately high incarceration rate that leads to terrible societal costs.

But... when Casey goes to jail and meets Bubba, I think you'll mellow out a bit.


NR ;->

Ogg the Caveman said...

@ NR:

We could let out all the nonviolent drug users and such, and Bubba would still be there to greet Casey. It would be win-win, and the savings would be like passive income. What a sweet deal!

Lost Cause said...

Soon, Americans will stop believing in the fairy tales taught to them in their government schools as children, and realize that we live in a state much like China, filled with working drones who are just part of the money making machine for the elites who founded this nation (or who bought their way in.) They care little about the landscape, or the populations of workers.

Lost Cause said...

<< How many people in prison shouldn't be here in the first place? >>

Lou, are you in prision? I didn't know that inmates had internet access.

Rob Dawg said...

Lou, are you in prison? I didn't know that inmates had internet access.

Worse, Texas.

Lou Minatti said...

Here's the answer:

"But federal officials estimate that about 40,000 of the 170,000 inmates who come through the (LA) county jail each year are in the United States illegally." (From an LA Times article a few weeks ago that is no longer available.)

More than 25% of inmates are not supposed to be in the US to begin with. Immediately deport the criminal aliens and California taxpayers will save hundreds of millions of dollars that they currently spend on prisons.

w said...

By illegally entering the country these people are renouncing their rights under the Geneva convention. (How you ask...because I said so) Ship them to Cuba.

Lost Cause, those drones sure have a lot of nice crap. If they want more fulfilling lives they sure could cut back and afford to work less. But, we like having lots of nice stuff.

Ogg the Caveman said...

I think automatic deportation would have the same problem as the Three Strikes law: it would tend to encourage murder. Think about it. If the penalty for all crimes is a few weeks or months in INS lockup followed by being shipped home, what's the down side to killing somebody that you rob so they can't finger you?

Making illegals serve out their sentences before being deported costs a lot of money, but it might be better than the alternative.

H Simpson said...

Lets do the same as China

1 Sunday every month, fill the local soccer stadium and roll out 20 or so frames. March the drug dealers/users up, put a rope around their neck and let them swing.

Get to the end of the row, pull them down and go for round 2.

Afterwards comes round 3.

This has many benefits:

Saves money as no bullets are needed (they charge family for bullets).

Reenforces why you don't do drugs.

Eliminates druggies coming back again and again.

Makes great TV (Did I mention they broadcast this stuff?).

Lowers the needs for lots of jails and associated guards.


win-win!

h.

Ogg the Caveman said...

@ H. Simpson:

At my high school, the rate of marijuana use was around 50%. That's not atypical. Other drugs add to that, but let's take 50% as the portion of American adults who have used illegal drugs at one time or another. The actual number is likely quite a bit higher, but 50% is a pretty safe floor.

Under your proposal, all of them deserve to die.

Now, make a list of all the people you know and divide them into groups: family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances. From each group, select the people who you think deserve to be executed. You need to pick at least half. That includes any minor children that you may have -- they may be too young now, but statistically, they've got about an even chance of committing a capital crime before they graduate high school. So if you have two kids, pick one for the gallows.

Were you able to do it, or do you just want the government to execute drug users that you don't know?

Akubi said...

@Ogg,
At my high school, the rate of marijuana use was around 50%.

There must have been a lot of white people at your high school.

H Simpson said...

No Ogg, the idea is to stop folks from doing it anymore, not erradicate the general population.

Seeing people swing will send a message, at least to the ones with a couple brain cells still working. They may not like it, but they will tow the line.

Harsh at first, but people catch on quick when they see consequences are enforced.

If you want some compasion, you could enforce the Singpore style of a good paddling the first offense followed by counciling. But this get off free every time stuff has to stop.

Same with the border. I am sick of the BILLIONS we are pissing away on that border fence nobody really seems to want. The real issue of why that border seems unstoppable is the millions crossing it each year. Instead of going after some poor sobs just trying to make a better living, quickly throw a dozen CEOs in the can for 10 years for using illegal labor and at the same time doubling the legal quota for those that want to do it by the book. Those laws are already in place!

Once the illegal jobs dry up, the illegals will stop coming, the INS will have more than enough resources to protect the border, and we can control our growth.

One does not need techology or sympathy for 90% of the crap spewed at us by lawyers and lobbiest every night on the news. A little common sense, some laws that are enforced, and real penalities is all that is truely needed.


h.