Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
Scary title? Yes. Fearmongering? Only if you consider reminding everyone of our insolvency as being “fearmongering”.
With the city of Newport Beach owing over $1 billion in pensions that they never bothered to fully fund while hiring employees, we’re on the cusp of a major financial crisis which will become unsustainable in a mere 6-8 years. Meanwhile, we are expanding entire pension-dependant departments without making corresponding changes in our pension reduction plan, spending $260k on unnecessary road signs and $250k on a proven-by-numbers bus idea which is guaranteed to fail.
Furthermore, it looks mathematically likely that the CalPERS debt will be doubling in the next 6 years, bringing our debt payments and liabilities even closer and more dramatic. Unless council takes drastic action to create a fiscally responsible city, we can fully expect bankruptcy in Newport Beach within the next 10-15 years. Curious what we are paying? Check out the salaries we are paying our people, at: http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2015/newport-beach/
It’s sad to note that most cities in California– and most states– are in the same bucket. There are three general ways that politicians view this problem:
1) “It’s not a problem, because government defies the restrictions of math”.
2) “It’s a problem, but since everyone is dealing with it, we’ll get a bailout from the federal government, which defies the restrictions of math”.
3) “It’s a problem, and the entities that caused it (local government) should deal with it, because even governments are restricted to the confines of mathematics”.
Here is a comprehensive report by Costa Mesa Brief called “Pensions and the CalPERS Time Bomb”:
