As city revenues have continued to decline, more money has been allocated to public safety both in real dollars and as a percentage of the general fund budget. Sixty percent of our general fund is allocated to public safety versus 40 percent 20 years ago. That 60 percent includes public safety pension costs and consumes our top four revenue sources combined: property tax, sales tax, utility tax and phone tax revenues.
In real dollars, San Jose spends $115 million more on public safety then we did 10 years ago, yet we have less personnel—while our population has grown from 950,000 to one million. One could contrast this at the federal level where our military budget (public safety) is dwarfed by entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the interest on the national debt. As this spending allocation has transpired in San Jose it is a struggle to pay for other services in our City Charter, such as libraries.
San Jose libraries have been delivering more with less for years. They have been doing so by restructuring how they deliver their services. If the libraries had not changed then residents would have fewer library services today. Our library system has used technology to become more efficient. Ninety five percent of library users use self-checkout. This has been a huge savings on the number of people needed to run a library, plus it has created a more efficient use of the library consumer’s time. I remember having to wait in massive lines at the library back in the day when checking out.
Several libraries have automated book sorting equipment where your item is scanned, sorted and transported down a conveyor belt so items get back on the shelf faster and with fewer people. The libraries have implemented technology to augment their service to residents. The same way I believe photo radar or red light running cameras could augment pedestrian safety by issuing tickets 24/7.
Back in 1995 our library system loaned out 4,816,242 items with 288 full-time staff. In fiscal year 2009-2010 our library loaned out nearly 15 million items with 365 full-time staff. Triple the usage—plus new branch libraries—but we did not triple the employees. Was this the equivalent goal of outsourcing by using technology?
We see the value in libraries not only from testimonials at council meetings but also by the numbers. Last year 14,919,873 items were borrowed from the library and 7,642,747 visitors walked into our libraries (not unique visitors and not all San Jose residents). Six of our libraries loaned more than one million items during the year. Berryessa, Evergreen and Tully loaned out over 100,000 items a month. The most visited library in 2009-2010 fiscal year is Tully with 530,320 visitors and the least visited library was Almaden with 107,878 visitors.
The library is looking to stay ahead of obsolescence by offering technology like free WiFi at all branches, text-a-librarian service, eBooks with over 109,000 downloads, online magazine and newspaper subscriptions as well as subscriptions to 60 different research resources. Ninety eight percent of new library card registrations and 62 percent of overdue fine payments are done online.
The Partners in Reading program, which provides literacy classes to adults, has been a catalyst for volunteers. More than 25,498 hours were contributed by volunteers which equates to $593,000 in cost avoidance. Fifty eight percent of this program is funded by the general fund with the remaining coming from grants.
The Library Parcel Tax was first approved in 1994 and renewed by over two-thirds of voters in 2004. That tax provided $7.2 million to the libraries this year which funded 47 percent of the materials budget and 41 full time library staff. The Library Parcel Tax is $27.80 for a single family home and displayed on your property tax bill. This parcel tax will expire in 2014 and would likely go back to the voters for their consideration in either June 2012 or November 2012.
Should San Jose voters going forward select any new taxes go to specific city departments? We have set up rules at the state level, for example, with Prop 98 and education funding. Measure R in Palo Alto for example would have required a citywide election if a fire station was to be closed or a reduction in fire staffing but it was rejected, with 75 percent voting no.
The deficit going into next year is approximately $70 million. This means anything cut last year is not being restored and more cuts will have to be made. Residents will lose services unless we deliver services differently asap. The Council will meet all day on Nov. 18 to discuss the deficit in public session.
Pier,
Indeed the library is a great success, morphing as it has to meet increased demand with less and less resources each year.
As for the library parcel tax, I wonder how many voters remember that, at its inception, it was advertised as being “additional funding,” above and beyond the continuing general fund contribution.
Quite the opposite has happened – general fund contributions have shriveled such that the parcel tax has taken on an ever-increasing role in financing library operations.
Voters approving taxes and fees that are restricted for use on specific projects get hoodwinked time after time. Our politicians merely play the old shell game in these instances.
At any rate, my sincere congratulations to the library staff for doing such an amazing job with such limited funding.
Yeah, I remember working on the Measure E campaign in 1994 and while I was glad the supplemental money came in for the collection I sort of saw the writing on the wall….
…popular programs that receive dedicated revenue streams are almost always robbed of existing revenue since they’re “doing well” and that money can be used for discretionary spending elsewhere.
Overall….the Library system is probably one of the highest performing city departments and really is a core service as much as police and perhaps even more than fire.
If anyone wants to talk honestly, please note that improvements to building codes have dramatically reduced the number of fires. This was noted in the 1970’s and so seeking to justify continued staffing levels, it was deemed wise to add a secondary function, medical first-responder. The result is some goofy system where heavy equipment is rolled to the scene of someone tripping and falling and then a private ambulance company shows up to transport the person and bill either insurance or the county.
Giving firefighters a medical role is great, but does it make sense financially? Why not just put paramedic units and vehicles at certain stations and have those both respond to medical calls as well as do the transport, thus earning the revenues now going to private ambulance companies? You could even have rolling units on call to increase coverage like the ambulance companies, and they could double as firefighters when needed.
Blair,
Your comment regarding paramedics simply makes too much sense. Much of why things are the way they are can be described in a two-word, highly non-PC phrase – “rice bowls.” Because of that, your wonderful suggestion will never fly.
I don’t think the voters were hoodwinked by politicians or were baited and switched. Yes, general fund support has shriveled. But I think that has more to do with the financial meltdown and the great recession that followed afterwards. Both decreased revenues. The meltdown created a pension shortfall that has to be patched by new money. I’m glad that we have a parcel tax to provide the libraries with one source of stable funding.
The excessive pay, benefits, sick time payouts, 3% cost of living increases and unreasonable unfair to taxpayers 90% pensions are one of the many problems with budget deficit
Cut Cost of Living 3% to equal Social Security COL
Increase public employee pensions contributions to 50% if they want to have excessive pension they can pay 1/2 cost
Eliminate large sick leave payouts by combining vacation / sick leave to personal time off and limit to 60 days
Public Safety officers know they got very excessive sweet political deal by years campaign contributions and lobbying Legislature
Now Public Safety needs to give back for good of city budget and stop whining or taxpayers will impose further cuts by ballot initiative / state
propositions to overcome strangle hold government unions have on Legislature
It’s only San Jose’s Public Safety employees (Police and Firefighters)who get 90% retirement benefits. All other employees retirement are capped at 75%.
Willow Glen Mom,
Only 4% of public safety in San Jose retires at 90%. The vast majority are 65-75% because few physically make it through the entire 30 years, especially if they have been patrol officers during that time. We (police) have also given back 10% over our last 2 contracts, plus we gave up our annual uniform and equipment allowance.
My original message was that the cap for Public Safety employees is 90%, but the cap for all other employees is 75%.
There is a difference in the retirement benefit.
If you’re going to mention early retirees, don’t forget to talk about fraudulent disability retirements, and how the contract makes it hard to investigate them.
Read,
Yeah, that’s a Pandora’s Box, alright. The stats on safety officers bailing on a disability retirement are staggering. I believe within Santa Clara County, the percentage is a magnitude of order higher than in most locales. Oh well, it’s only taxpayers’ money… no harm, no foul.
I believe that Council District 1 Councilman Pete Constant has a disability retirement from the police department and he also collects his pay as a councilman. Isn’t that double dipping? Isn’t it costing taxpayers a lot of money? Perhaps he could have one or the other income sources, but not both.
“San Jose libraries have been delivering more with less for years. They have been doing so by restructuring how they deliver their services.”
I voted for Measure V & Measure W. I am not a fan of the city and its taxes being held hostage to the selfish and reckless demands of union leadership however I must applaud the Library leadership, staff and system for doing more with less.
I wholeheartedly support their approach to the reality of the city’s budget shortfalls. I’d like to encourage Councilman Oliverio to lobby his peers to reward the library worker’s union (when their contract is up for negotiation) for being good stewards. Lets reward those who look after our resources and punish those who do not. The taxpayers are behind you Mayor and City Council. Measure V & W sent a message to the greedy unions—lets send another message to the unions—that they can and will be dealt with fairly if they are as smart as the city workers who are running the library system. Bravo SJ Libraries!
Every City Worker is part of a “bargaining unit” or union including librarians and City Council persons.
Try finding the “benefits” that the City Council persons get as a result of being elected and joining their bargaining unit. Good luck because you won’t find them listed like those of the librarians, parks workers or police/fire. D
Did you uknow that City Council persons like Pier are members of a defined benefit retirement plan? How much does he pay towards his plan? How much do we the people pay?
The librarians did a very good thing 2 years ago, when they were the only union to take cuts to preserve services and jobs. It was sad that they were reward the very next year with 35% cuts to their budget.
The reality of the situation is, that there are current 300 FTE librarians for the city. There are no plans to hire more librarians, when the Bascom and the Seven Trees library “open” next year. The librarians will probably asked to take more to support 20 branch libraries with 275 FTE’s.
It’s nice to read something about a city department that actually “gets it.”
Congratulations to our librarians.
“In real dollars, San Jose spends $115 million more on public safety then we did 10 years ago, yet we have less personnel—while our population has grown from 950,000 to one million.”
Since you’ve chosen to make your point with budget figures, and assuming your figures are accurate for the ten year period cited, perhaps you might breakdown your attention-grabbing statistic into single years, just for the sake of clarity. I’d be interested to see how big a jump occurred between any of those early years, and if increase in the first five years was anywhere near half of that $115 million dollar figure.
The City is doing a nifty little two-step with its budget woes by claiming, on one hand, that public safety costs have been out of control for a decade or two, while on the other, suggesting that elected officials (such as Mr. Reed) have long been exhausting themselves trying to keep these runaway costs under check. The problem is: who remembers any of that? Where is the evidence supporting the image of the evil public safety unions overriding the efforts and protestations of the mayor or the council?
If, as is claimed, the budget has been operating recklessly for a decade (or more), then we are left to conclude that those we elected to drive it have been negligent.
So, where is the apology to the taxpayers? Why has not one elected official stepped down in disgrace? The answer is simple: they don’t buy the hype, they believe they’ve treated the budget responsibly; after all, they were there for the boom years of the pension fund and remember the many years before the mortgage meltdown. This city’s leadership, elected and appointed, know what happened, and some are smart enough to understand why it happened. But not to worry—thanks to the deplorable state of the local news media, Mayor Reed simply rewrote the story, removed everyone in City Hall from accountability, and sold his revisionist history to a public already salivating for some fresh demons.
Had an insurance company tripled the rates on San Bruno homeowners and justified it by showing that claim totals had gone up ten-fold in the past decade, there isn’t a single one of you who wouldn’t see through the bullshit and rightly attribute the jump to costs associated the recent gas pipe catastrophe. Yet when the City of San Jose, itself hit broadside by a catastrophe for which it had failed to prepare, chooses to point the finger at its employees (who, like the San Bruno residents, have also been diligently paying their premiums), the majority of you fall for it hook, line, and sinker.
Go figure. I’ll just have to chalk it up to Chuck Reed’s mesmerizing charisma.
Of course, if in the past decade the city had put away a billion dollars it instead spent for a monstrosity of a city hall, tens of millions on car races and golf courses, subsidizing Mayor McEnery’s new project, and throw in another $40 spent for land for a baseball stadium, the city would be in pretty good shape. If the city council hadn’t agreed to a ridiculous settlement to annex county pockets of high crime areas while at the same time continue full steam ahead to build affordable housing we would certainly be in better shape.
Pier has an axe to grind with public safety due to what happened a few weeks ago when he was found “collecting” his opponents signs. Pier has always seemed rather vindictive so I would expect to see more of the blame of the cities woes falling on the back of public safety in his future statements.
I agree with Pierluigi Oliverio’s pro-library message, but Greg Howe is also correct in that every time the parcel tax goes through, the old shell game shuffles general fund away from libraries to other programs. These other programs are probably not popular enough to get their own tax but special interests prevent them from going away.
Has San Jose investigated whether there would be economies of scale in combining library systems in Santa Clara County. From the public’s standpoint, this would be wonderful because one card would work from Palo Alto to Gilroy, and you could return material at any branch. The County system is generally well-run and uses those check-in machines you speak of.
About those economies of scales. It currently costs $49 per capita at Oakland libraries, $83 per capita at Santa Clara County libraries, $90 per capita at SF libraries and only $41 per capita at San Jose libraries.
http://www.sjpl.org/commissionagendas2010 – see page 9.
” The excessive pay, benefits, sick time payouts, 3% cost of living increases and unreasonable unfair to taxpayers 90% pensions are one of the many problems with budget deficit ”
Yes, pay and pension are big budget problems but why does Council continue to spend taxes on money losing non essential city costs
– golf courses, Hayes Mansion, Mexican Museum, most economic development / redevelopment tax giveaways – San Pedro Market, downtown subsidies, low income housing subsidies above 20% RDA funds / expenses , mismanaged non profits, housing developer subsidies, credits and normal 100% recovery fee reductions, and all non essential city and non city services costs
UNTIL Council and City Manager talk about ALL city spending not just general fund spending, remove barriers to job / business / tax creation , STOP raising taxes, fees etc on existing business / residents
San Jose will NEVER solve budget problems since it is not being open with people and is UNWILlING to CUT politically protected millions questionable non essential spending we all know about So taxpayers will be UNWILLING TO VOTE in any new taxes
I too am a fan of the SJ libraries. I enthusiastically applaud the efforts of the library leadership team and staff that continuously over the years do more with less, they innovate, create and change with the times in order to continue to serve the public. Impressive!
I will fully support imposing another parcel tax (yes, I am a homeowner) in 2014 to fund our library system. In my opinion it is a good investment in our future and it has proven to be money well spent.
Another library group also deserves recognition: The Friends of the Library. Most if not all library branches have a Friends group who hold book sales to fund additional library programs and engage in advocacy and outreach work. These dedicated volunteers are huge contributors of our library system and were instrumental in raising awareness of last year’s budget issues facing SJ Libraries and lobbying to keep them open and used. Kudos to both the SJ Library/Staff and the Friends Groups—keep up the great work.
Last, thank you Pierluigi for your continued leadership in raising awareness of issues such as these.
Tina
When is your new library on Bascom going to have staff and be opened? For some reason your constituents think I’m a good person to complain to about this.
Another thing to point out, why did so many libraries have to be rebuilt? I understand a lot of the buildings were old and ugly, but they functioned. They kept rain off books. Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to have just updated some of the older buildings, maybe re-used some of the buildings in SJC inventory?
“Another thing to point out, why did so many libraries have to be rebuilt?”
While many residents wanted to see the Hillview library expanded and kept at its location, Reid-Hillview users objected. So, the location at Hillview Park was abandoned, and the new library was built on land taken from a nearby school. While we did get a new library, we lost land for residents to use for recreational purposes. This is just one more example of how Reid-Hillview negatively affects the surrounding neighborhood.
Another example was the Hank Lopez Community Center had to decline a $1.5 million dollar grant for expansion due to objections from Reid-Hillview users.
I was not here when the funding for building the libraries was passed (10 years ago), but one thing to consider is how much what people expect from the library has changed. Some old buildings are just not equipped for the demands of modern technology, and sometimes it’s actually less expensive to rebuild than to retrofit.
To my knowledge, though, voters passed funding specifically to rebuild libraries and new branches. It’s a shame that we have new buildings going without use (and others being under-used) because no one planned the funding to actually staff the new buildings.
Sarah thank you for your response.
I would accept your argument that we needed “modernization” if I hadn’t spent 10 years in IT doing everything from pulling cat5 cable to setting up complex VPNs and routing tables for clients.
All any library needs to be “modern” is an internet connection (leaving out plo’s autosorter)
There are other costs. Cable drops, routers and computers, but these costs are really negligable compared to a complete rebuild. We’re really only talking $3-4000 for everything (including 10 pc’s)
There was some interesting history here. The deal to build the combined City-University Library consumed a lot of political capital and a big chunk of redevlopment money. In order to demonstrate that SJ was committed to serving all its neighborhoods, they promised to do a bond measure to add/rebuild library branches so that every part of SJ could enjoy the library reinvestment.
In answer to why the buildings had to be replaced…traditional thinking – big public works type stuff which creates jobs and contracts for developers. A more farsighted planning process could have leveraged the bond money to build branch libraries into mixed use developments (thus reducing the cost to all parties) and even gotten outside of the box and combined things like police substations, fire stations, new DMV branch offices and other compatible used into clustered service centers along with community centers and libraries.
I’d have also thrown in some non-profit performing arts space, business incubation units and a few market rate commercial areas to underwrite the cost of facilities maintenance. Heck…how about sustainable community gardens tied to rain water harvested from runoff and solar demonstration projects. Have fun with it instead of just another square block in a square space (library, check).
There’s also the idea of using vacant retail spaces such as are created when grocery chains go out of business. Creative conversion of that would have been neat too.
Let’s be honest Pier our police department has been doing more with less for decades. Our population keeps growing and our PD has decreased.
Actually, this is the myth that the Public Safety unions keep trying to push onto the public, but we are not buying it.
It is a fact that we are spending more on public safety than we ever have. The PD are is not doing “more with less”. They are actually getting MORE as INDIVIDUALS, which is one of the reasons we are where we are today…. Less service for our tax dollars.
Lee Pac show me some proof. The City’s stats show differently.
By ‘more with less’, we mean that we are serving a larger population with fewer people. On the other hand, so many crimes go uninvestigated/unsolved (i.e. burglaries) that I think the momentum has shifted to doing less with less. The best that can be said at this point is that SJPD is keeping up with taking reports, managing calls for service, solving the higher-profile crimes and managing a bit of self-initiated activity/arrests, too. This is hardly an inspiring litany of triumphant crime-fighting. As for the wages and benefits, do a little research and compare against other agencies. I did. Know what I found? SJPD wages and benefits are, generally, not competitive at all. Want some examples? Santa Clara PD, Redwood City PD, Palo Alto PD, and Fremont PD all offer pay/benefit packages which are superior to that of SJPD. Which further suggests that, if other agencies can do it and maintain an officer citizen ration closer to the national average (1.7/1000) than San Jose’s present 1.2/1000, then there is something seriously wrong with San Jose, and it probably isn’t its employees or their pay/benefit packages.
Christian, is that you or is it Kathleen? Gosh, I would have thought that you both would have boycotted Pier’s column but that’s not the case.
Our libraries would work better (without) Jane Light.
What a hateful and mean-spirited comment.
Jane Light is one of the reasons the SJ Library system is working as efficiently as it is.
Tina
I completely agree Tina. Jane is a bright spot in San Jose. The innovation she has brought to the library system has allowed it to grow even in the face of shrinking budgets. She has led the way on modernizing branch libraries, integrating new technology, and providing new services, such as ebooks and online learning programs.
Pier,
I just reviewed the city Budgets for 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 and the Graphs indicate that for 09-10 only 45% of the General Fund was allocated for Public Safety and the Expense by Category showed personal costs CITYWIDE were 64%
For 10-11 General Fund Allocations are up 2% to 47% (a full 13% below your number) allocated to Public Safety and Expense by Category was exactly the same at 64%
Going back 10 years to 2000-2001 public safety accounted for 38% of the General Fund and Personal costs citywide were 57%. If we are to belive your “40% – 20 years ago” then your predecessors on the council actually cut the percentage allocated to public safety sometime between 20 and 10 years ago.
Where do you get your numbers?
2010-2011 General Fund Revenues $704,694,047
2010-2011 Police Department $297,498,801
2010-2011 Fire Department $153,332,280
2010-2011 Public Safety Total $450,831,081
64% of general fund revenues allocated to public safety this fiscal year.
2000-2001 General Fund Revenues $596,301,955
2000-2001 Police Department $189,414,987
2000-2001 Fire Department $93,860,871
2000-2001 Public Safety Total $283,275,858
47% of general fund revenues allocated to public safety 10 years ago.
We should never have built so many libraries around our city. Grand central libraries are a much more efficient and effective model than the piece meal system we have. Due to bond measure construction of libraries, we now have more operating cost than we have budgeted for because voters built the facilities and now the city has to staff them. A gesture of library equality has backfired and left unintended consequences. We all like libraries thats why we voted for their expansion. We just did not think it through.
Stay tuned for more city employee bashing and smoke screen by a bartender turned council member who had his feelings hurt.
Actually if you opened the branch with just clerical staff and handled reference questions remotely you could run a branch library way cheaper. Do you need a professional librarian constantly on hand to handle most casual users issues (where’s the mission pamphlets, where’s the new Stephen King book?) Librarians, like Nursing, has grown into a rather unaffordable profession (Master Degree, pay equity for female dominated profession pushing salaries upwards to 60-80k range.) Collection management and other issues requiring the degree (and experience) of a librarian could be handled off site via central collections management and site visits. Interns from library science school could supplement the clerical staff who handle circulation and shelving and backup could come with remote access to central reference desk at main library. Show me a branch library operating budget and I can rework to deliver identical service for half the cost. I’d also downsize the dedicated space a little and add a commercial element (coffee shop, jamba juice, whatever) that would generate a revenue stream for maintenance and utilities.)
You can also reset the wages that have crept upwards in the clerical and page professions so that new hires start closer to market rate wages. Or if all else fails, go with contracting out which is becoming popular in some small towns who are hiring private companies to run their libraries with a set performance target and budget. Kind of like charter schools for a core city service.
“Interns from library science school could supplement the clerical staff who handle circulation and shelving.” The vast majority of library students at SJSU take online courses.
Collection and program management are already done centrally.
SJ library has been a nationwide leader in effiency studies and automated equipment to increase productivity in getting returned items back to the shelves.
Agree that would be great to have commercial space close to the new buildings—as long as the city is not managing the leases for them. Just haven’t ever see that work well.
To Willow Glen Mom: you state that “all other employees retirements are at 75%”
What do you mean by that? My husband gets 20% pension after 25 years in the private system and trust me, he would have been way better off as the lowliest of city typists! (better pension, medical, dental, we have no paid med/dent) plus puny retirement
You should be THRILLED to get 75%!!
There are other jobs out there – especially for folks who have the heart and ethic to work 25 years for 20% – The military gives you 50% after 20 years at any age plus benefits – if your husband isn’t too old start there – if he is too old seek a waiver…
Thanks for clarifying because your first paragraph is misleading – You start talking about GENERAL FUND REVENUES then make the misleading claim: “Sixty percent of our GENERAL FUND is allocated to public safety versus 40 percent 20 years ago.” What you really meant was that 60% of General Fund REVENUE went to public safety.
Feel free to use my prior post to let everyone know that as a percentage of the GENERAL FUND, PUBLIC SAFETY spending has increased by 7% in the last decade from 38% to 45% and Personal Costs as a percentage of the General Fund have increased the same 7% from 57% to 64% in the same period. It is a much more accurate and truthful presentation of the facts.
And 10 years ago police did not pay 21 percent of their gross salaries towards their pensions. Maybe all sides of the story should be told.
So I have a question for Pierluigi. I work for the city and voted no on measure V because I know the truth behind it. Now since V passed the city has no one to answer to when they want to make changes to how public safety is run and staffed. And now this is the proof. Everyone in the city, including Chuck Reed and Debra Figone have stated in flyers and news reports that if V and W passed that would save jobs and public safety resources, like fire engines and trucks. But as of couple days ago the Fire Department was told to cut at least 6 million from its budget by Dec 1 this year. So that means 3 more engine companies are gone, so that brings the grand total of 7 engines and 1 truck cut in less than a year. And that brings this city response and staffing to levels of 1982 when population was 670,000 and now its a city of over a million people. San Jose was one of the most understaffed big cities in the country before all the cuts now its the worst staffed. And what is sad is that its the citizens that will be suffering, and in some cases I have seen it happen already, it took over 10mins to get to someone’s house have a medical emergency, but those events are never reported to the public. So when will the engine and staffing levels be increased since the city has stated that passing those measures will save staffing and engines, whats the time frame? How much worse are you guys going to gut this city? Cause I am willing to bet my life that its only going to get worse and all the talk from the mayor about those measures and how much will be saved was a complete and total lie to everyone’s face.
The fire fighters had a choice of a pay cut to save their jobs. Instead they spent a lot of money sending out political advertising that was false. Taxpayer money does not grow on trees so save us the scare tactics.
I am not using any scare tactics, everything I wrote has happened or is in the works to happen as stated by the mayor and fire chief. And that campain money was spent to try and win because the fire fighters knew that if measure V passed the city would thin out the department further than it has because the city does not have to answer to anyone but themselves anymore, and as you can see in my previous post they are planning to do just that with the cuts. And per the pay cuts, the city did not promise that pay cuts would save jobs and engines. Because the city said to the cops that if cops took pay cut it would save service, yet the city cut the gang task force after the fact. And the city manager just ask the cops this past week to take a 10 percent pay cut on top of what they took this year. So even though the city said it would save jobs, the city had already planned on laying off the firefighters again anyways. So honestly I would not believe anything the city has said and promised. And if you do not believe me go and do a ride along at a station in san jose and see how thin the department runs everyday. During a fire a couple weeks ago there were at least 6 empty stations, because there were not enough engines. I am not using scare tactics just facts, my family lives in san jose and I am just tring to get the word out about how bad it is.
The anti-V/W campaign was poorly run and didn’t do a great job of conveying the message. It is understood that taxpayer money doesn’t grow on trees. However, San Jose’s expenditures run into the several billions of dollars. Have you looked at the budget careully? Have you considered if the city’s expenditures mirror how you would run your household’s expenditures? The principles are basically the same.
San Jose’s police officers were told the same thing: take a cut in pay to help keep the city solvent and preserve jobs. They did take the pay and now they are being told that jobs are, once again, on the chopping block. How much more do you want cops or firefighters to give back? They’ve already given back a lot and yet you, and many like you, make a decision to either disregard or remain willfully ignorant of that fact.