San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis's Pension

Don't you hate it when people talk out of both sides of their mouth? This was the case with Bonnie Dumanis, San Diego District Attorney, on the subject of pensions.

SDDA for mayor

While currently serving in the legal capacity, Dumanis is running for San Diego mayor in the upcoming elections. In fact, there's a kick-off event today if you're interested in helping her win. But if you ask me, I think Ms. Bonnie has done pretty well for herself already on our dime.

If she wins the mayoral election and serves out its term, Bonnie Dumanis stands to receive $305,000 a year in pensions. If she loses, she'll earn a $250,000 annual pension anyway, more than she makes currently as San Diego D.A. That's nice for Ms. Bonnie, but what about the bonnie tax payers of the City of San Diego?

City of pensions

The city of sunshine, except for June gloom, is riddled with pension problems. City workers want to get paid again now as reward for working their jobs of the past. Goodness knows, San Diego is still badly out of work with unemployment at 9.6% as listed last month. But that's a private matter.

Funding public pensions seems to be a citywide issue. The city is broke, unable to fund current work nevermind that of the past. Rates for public services continue to rise while the services themselves decline badly or disappear. Here are some examples of city coffers being filled for pensions, while cleverly disclaiming tax hikes for raising the revenue.

Got water?

The City of San Diego Water Department constantly declares drought and a dire state of emergency with regard to water supply. Marginal water rates are through the roof. They haven't noticed the full reservoirs and abundant annual supply of mountain snow melt brought to the City by the Colorado River. Pay through the nose or dry up. The choice is ours.

Twice trash

Trash pick-up is covered by property tax. Now, only residents living on public avenues have that luxury. All others must pay twice for trash removal: once with tax, again as billed through their HOAs (homeowners associations). In San Diego, that's mostly everybody.

Passions high on potholes

The potholes are killing the cars on San Diego city streets. Roads are in such disrepair that drivers can expect car damage just by driving. Road maintenance appears to be a thing of the past, while folks can hardly keep up the concommitant car maintenance driving on damaged city streets requires.

Broke and broker

Dumanis knows the system is broke and broken. "I think there's something wrong with that system, I didn't create [it] and I'm going to fix [it]," she said according to the Voice of San Diego. But Dumanis, a Republican, sits at the end of a fat government-sponsored checkbook into which funds continue to flow.

I wonder whether political principle doesn't interfere with personal finance, regardless of party. I wonder what happened to the public service private citizens promised when they got elected. You can follow the money for the source of the problem, but the source of the money for public pensions will always be you and me.

Sources:

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/government/thehall/article_d28416f2-9d25-11e0-a40e-001cc4c002e0.html http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/lfmonth/sand$pds.pdf