Last week, at the city council meeting, I removed an item from the consent calendar on the agenda for discussion. As you may remember from my blog about San Jose’s million-dollar golf nets, consent calendar items do not have individual discussion, but rather are voted on all at the same time. If one wants to discuss a consent item, you have to “remove” it for discussion.
The item I removed was asking $993,876 for the library to spend over the course of seven years on an online tutoring service for kids. Nearly a million dollars is a significant amount of money. The $993,876 was not restricted funds and could have been spent on librarians instead. My comment/question to the council was: If we know we are going to have to do layoffs of library staff on July 1, 2010 to balance the budget, then maybe we should hold off on discretionary spending so we can retain staff to keep our libraries open. This expenditure is approximately two librarians salary each year for seven years. My comment fell on deaf ears and the council voted to spend this money; I voted against this expenditure.
When it comes to the libraries, the core deliverable to me is that libraries are open as many hours a week as we can afford, so users can access information and have a place to study. Any and all other programming should be funded after libraries are open seven days a week. If we have funds left over after libraries are open seven days a week then we can start evaluating the option of adding different programs. Until then, the City’s money should be used to keep libraries open with staff.
The online tutoring service could be canceled from year to year; however, good luck ever canceling a program/service once it starts.
On another note, I posted a survey last week regarding the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) budget. The RDA board adopts the final budget on Dec. 8. A person shared with me that the question I posted below (which appears on the survey) was “biased.” I shared that the information I gave was factual, not biased. I thought I would share the question with you here. I have added commentary in bold parenthesis:
The Redevelopment Agency has spent $774 million on housing (true) making San Jose the number-one provider of affordable housing in the state of California (true) by financing 18,000 units (true) of affordable housing while neighboring cities do next to nothing for affordable housing. (Neighboring Cities have not met the Association Bay Area Governments (ABAG) affordable housing targets, while San Jose has exceeded overall ABAG affordable housing targets). With so much given to affordable housing and so many people in need of jobs (12.5 percent unemployment), should the RDA borrow money from affordable housing reserves this year, as allowed by state law (true), to be spent instead on economic development to help create jobs?
The Redevelopment budget survey can be found here. It closes this week.
Happy Thanksgiving San Jose.
City staff “teaching moment” – being a loyal friend pays, disloyalty gets punished
Ask your friends at city hall – why library got ” $993,876 for the library to spend over the course of seven years on an online tutoring service for kids” while other department got cuts
Head of library supports City Manager without question, even back room bad decisions
* favorite program got funded
* library staff grows
while disloyal non friends get cuts
It is ironic that Councilman Oliverio writes about library expenditures when he voted to spend money on internet filters which would have necessarily cut into library hours. Same pot of money.
(I probably shouldn’t write “pot” and “Councilman Oliverio” in the same sentence because he might get too excited.)
What’s ironic is you take a shot at someone but don’t sign your name to it.
Hello Ironic,
Actually different pot of money and yes I did and still do support internet filters for the computers in the children’s section.
The cost for porn filter software is significantly less then the expenditure described in my blog. The cost to implement the filters for the computers in the the teenage section and children’s section was 80K one time fee and 9.9K annual fee however my motion that evening was only for the children’s computers which would be less then 40K one time fee and approximately 5K annual fee. Also 40K was pledged as a donation to the city that night at the Council meeting by members of the community.
P.O. wrote: “Actually different pot of money…” That’s one of the problems with govt. spending—these hundreds of different pots of money dedicated solely to one specific thing, even if there is a greater need elsewhere. And, if the money in that pot isn’t spent one year, the pot doesn’t get re-filled. So, we spend money on sh*t we don’t need and have no money for things we do need.
Much of this arises from money trickling down from the Feds. and Sacto., much of it pork.
We need to put all our money in one checking account, and spend it only on things we NEED, not just things someone else wants.
A question can contain accurate information and still be biased. Your question is a case-in-point.
How many kids use the online tutoring, and how often?
Do we know whether it actually helps them learn?
Don’t assume the answer is yes. It’s really easy to be a bad tutor.
Smithe Worde
We all have daily lessons from Merky about biased questions and information
Is it surprising that others now follow Merky liased example?
Some SJI poster said: If you don’t like Merky then don’t pay them to read paper and cancel subscriptions and they deserve to go out of business
Anyone interested in this service can go to this link. http://www.sjlibrary.org/services/reference/live_homework.htm
I think that the library is actually making fairly good use with that money. Instead of running their own operation, the library has outsourced tutoring to Tutor.com, a for profit 24/7 tutoring service. Tutor.com is a much more cost effective city wide system, then to create a semi-volunteer flesh-in-blood tutoring services for each library. Divided equally, each library would have $7.1K/year. This is not a lot of money, for small libraries. Let alone for a big branch like Almaden or MLK. The voluteers nor the libraries themselves could cover the full 2pm – 10pm time slots.
In contrast, anyone with a library card can log in to get tutoring help (in 3 languages) from 2pm – 10 pm everyday, regardless of whether the libraries doors are actually open or not. Not all kids can physically go to the library for the help. With the library slated to only be open 4 days a week. This on-line and out-of-building availability is key to helping all kids. All this is available to the general public, because San Jose used its purchasing power to lower costs for everyone. At a standard cost of $1/minute, the $1M would only buy me 40 hours/year of tutoring.
Though PO and I may disagree about the utility of this particular budget item, I agree with him that the library budget should aim at keeping the doors open 7 days a week and that we ought to scrutinize every individual budget line item. As the council liasion to the library commission, I expect him to both fight to keep the doors open and to pick apart the budget for all potential cost savers.
BTW. Lots of foresight and courage, on PO’s part, calling for the POT ordinance. We need to regulate that industry before we turn into LA. Yes to sick people. Even yes to happy hippys. A big, big no to cartels with guns.
why not give the pot money to the libraries instead of the police. Libraries would be a great alternative to “unlegal” use of Pot by kids and adults alike.
I agree with your philosophy of prioritizing keeping the libraries open 7 days a week. The people of San Jose invested a ton of money in these brand new architectural gems and we would not have done that had we known that the City would not make every effort to make them available to us. (Online tutoring program huh? Jesus.)
I’d say I was stabbed in the back by my “representative” once again. But what the hell. I’m used to it.
Surely there are statistics on how often this online tutoring is used—these statistics would hopefully be collected by some other company than the one that is providing the service. This should be posted on the city website somewhere. This would give us some idea of how cost effective this service is.
I would be interested in the justification given by the other council members as to why they voted for this expenditure. PO’s side sounds good, but we only get one side here—I’d like to believe that the other council members had some believably rational reason for voting the way they did.
Chris R,
You might be overanalyzing this thing.
Many politicians have learned that the easiest way to gain acclaim and praise is to be seen as being terribly concerned about “the children”.
There’s your “believably rational reason” right there.
And in the mean time while San Jose is discussing golf nets, plastic bags and disposable diapers the city of Santa Clara is closing a deal with Yahoo to move its campus and 12,000 jobs into their city.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_13862964
This is exactly why we should spend more RDA money on more affordable housing.
Yes indeed, San Jose must to continue to provide the employee housing to support Santa Clara’s and other surrounding cities’ lucrative business expansions.
Well said Steve!
It’s not just SJ—it’s statewide. BK casn’t be too far away!
Steven Greenhut
Plundering California
Public-sector unions have brought the state to its knees.
23 November 2009
The economy is struggling, the unemployment rate is high, and many Americans are struggling to pay the bills, but one class of Americans is doing quite well: government workers. Their pay levels are soaring, they enjoy unmatched benefits, and they remain largely immune from layoffs, except for some overly publicized cutbacks around the margins. To make matters worse, government employees—thanks largely to the power of their unions—have carved out special protections that exempt them from many of the rules that other working Americans must live by. California has been on the cutting edge of this dangerous trend, which has essentially turned government employees into a special class of citizens.
When I recently appeared on Glenn Beck’s TV show to discuss California’s dreadful fiscal situation, I mentioned that in Orange County, where I had been a columnist for the Orange County Register, the average pay and benefits package for firefighters was $175,000 per year. After the show, I heard from viewers who couldn’t believe the figure, but it’s true. Firefighters, like all public-safety officials in California, also receive a gold-plated retirement plan: a defined-benefit annual pension that offers 90 percent or more of the worker’s final year’s pay, guaranteed for the rest of his life (and the life of his spouse).
Government employees use various scams to boost their already generous benefits, which include fully paid health care and cost-of-living adjustments. The Sacramento Bee coined the term “chief’s disease,” for example, to refer to the 82 percent (in 2002) of chief’s-level employees at the California Highway Patrol who discovered a disabling injury about one year before retiring. That provides an extra year off work, with pay, and shields 50 percent of their final retirement pay from taxes. Most of these disabilities stem from back pain, knee pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and the like—not from taking bullets from bad guys. The disability numbers soared after CHP disbanded its fraud unit.
As I document in my new book, Plunder!, government employees of all stripes have manipulated the system to spike their pensions. Because California bases pensions for employees on their final year’s salary, some workers move to other jurisdictions for just that final year to increase their pay and thus the pension. Even government employees convicted of on-the-job crimes continue to collect benefits. Municipalities have adopted Defined Retirement Option Plans, or DROPs, in which the employee earns his salary and his full defined-benefit retirement pay at the same time, with the retirement pay going into an account payable upon actual retirement. And as average Americans work longer to sustain themselves, public employees can retire in their early fifties with their plush benefits.
The old deal seemed fair: public employees would earn lower salaries than Americans working in the private sector, but would receive a somewhat better retirement and more days off. Now, public employees get higher average pay, far higher benefits, and many more days off and other fringe benefits. They have also obtained greatly reduced work schedules, thus limiting public services even as pay and benefits shoot ever higher. The new deal is starting to raise eyebrows, thanks to efforts by groups such as the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, which publishes the $100,000 Club, a list of thousands of California government retirees with six-figure, taxpayer-guaranteed incomes. But even in these tough times, public employees continue to press city councils for retroactive pension increases, which amount to gifts of public funds for past services. Officials fear the clout that these unions, especially police and fire unions, wield on Election Day.
The story doesn’t end with the imbalance in pay and benefits. Government workers also enjoy absurd protections. The Los Angeles Times did a recent series about the city’s public school district, which doesn’t even try to fire incompetent teachers and is seldom able to get rid of those credibly accused of misconduct or abuse. Misbehaving teachers are sometimes kept from teaching, but they may spend years, even a decade, getting paid while they fight attempts to fire them. A state law referred to as the Peace Officers Bill of Rights, along with excessive privacy restrictions, likewise makes it nearly impossible to fire police officers who abuse their authority.
The media have finally started to take notice, largely because of some impossible-to-ignore financial excesses, particularly the tens of billions of dollars in “unfunded liabilities”—that is, future debt—run up by politicians more interested in pleasing union officials than in looking after the public’s finances. News reports have also focused on scandals at CalPERS, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which has faced record losses after making risky leveraged investments in bizarre real-estate deals. (The government pension system encourages such risky behavior: with defined-benefit systems, union members stand to gain if the investments go well, while taxpayers shoulder the burden if they don’t.) Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported on a politically connected insider who received $53 million in finder’s fees from CalPERS, raising questions of pay-to-play deals.
But the real scandal is a two-tier society where government workers enjoy benefits far in excess of those for whom they supposedly work. It’s past time to start cleaning up the mess by reforming retirement systems and limiting the public unions’ power. If we don’t, California’s financial problems will become insurmountable.
JMO,
I don’t know about you, but I’ll be getting out of Dodge before I’m dinged for higher taxes to pay for such nonsense. Another city to be sure, another county and/or state, as necessary.
I never thouht I’d consider leaving California, but the cancer of government inertia and overspending cannot last too much longer before this entire state becomes Third World. I’m looking at other places, and hope I can sell before my home is worth about the same as some shack in Michoacan or some cave in the Tora Bora Mountains next to Osama.
Perhaps when all the parasites feeding off the working folks (especially our politicians)leave the state for handouts elsewhere, we might recover. But that’s a couple of decades out, I’d say.
Can you imagine Nancy Pelosi applying for a REAL job?
You’re not laying off the right folks, P.O. We NEED good roads, working and maintained infrastructure. We WANT culture, but we do NOT NEED an Office of Cultural Affairs when we can’t maintain our infrastructure, roads, parks, etc.
WHEN will you folks start spending money as if you had earned it yourselves?
I heard the lates round of job cuts to help balance the budget resulted in a net loss of TWO jobs. You govt. folks live in a competely different world than we folks who elect you and pay your salaries and for your out-of-state and sometimes out-of-country junkets.
Painful decisions are necessary. Your press releases say so and say that you made them WRONG!! You are using a garden hose to fight a forest fire.
All the fat must go, and The Office of Cultural Affairs is my poster child for the first program to be entirely eliminated. Next, the 10% public art program. Fire everyone in both depts., and don’t give them big severance packages either. If we ever pull out of this financial crisis, we can hire them back when we can afford them.
johnmichael o’connor
Sounds like you are – after JMO quotes Steven Greenhut, Orange County Register
– Say it isn’t So,- an “Orange County Republican fiscal conservative” in liberal progressive, labor friendly, spend money we don’t have San Jose, while politicians tell the public “everything great” lies – Quick hide the kids, so they don’t get infected by fiscal conservative thoughts and common sense or “horror of liberal horrors” vote for tax accountable politicians with ethical backbones and public good – Say it isn’t So, JMO
Say it isn’t So, JMO what can be expect next ” JMO waving the Amercian flag while singing ” My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord” and marching with Christian Right Republicans
If you want to spend your money, fine; don’t spend mine on useless crap when we haven’t got decent infrastructure. You liberals are great at spending other peoples’ money.
You are appoarently mmore interested in where the writer is from that in his ideas. Typical lib.
JMO,
A careful rereading of the ire-provoking comment will reveal to you that it’s author is not your foe, but your ally.
Maybe he needs short sentences to understand
liberal progressive, labor friendly, spend money we don’t have San Jose, while politicians tell the public “everything great” lies –
Quick hide the kids, so they don’t get infected by fiscal conservative thoughts and common sense
or “horror of liberal horrors” vote for tax accountable politicians with ethical backbones and public good
At the Council Hearing, Staff revealed the number of student “contacts” in the first 9 months. The cost per “contact” is $7. A student logs in, asks for help on a problem and the session ends. The same student can log in 5 minutes later and ask for help on another problem. Thus, the cost is $7 per problem.
Staff only knows the number of “contacts”, not the number of different students.
Staff argues it’s good because it is available when library isn’t open (ie after 8 pm). Note—it is an online service. Many, Many San Jose students do not have online access. It’s very expensive. So the City is providing a service targeted to students with higher income.
Importantly, one has to ask whether it is really the City’s job to provide homework help. Shouldn’t the high school districts be working together to form a collaborative? Shouldn’t they be paying for this??? What’s the City’s job? What’s the schools job?
I say it is more important to find additional staffing dollars so that there is staffing for new libraries, like the one at Bascom Avenue in a neighborhood of poverty. Libraries reach many more people and they do not cost $7 per contact.