CA Budgets twofer:

California

Mayor's climate aide gets $160,000 a year

In his quest to make San Francisco the greenest city in the nation, Mayor Gavin Newsom recently created a $160,000-a-year job for a senior aide and gave him the ambitious-sounding title of director of climate protection initiatives.

But the new climate protection initiatives director is just the latest person to join the city payroll in the name of tackling global climate woes, raising questions about whether environmentalism is becoming the latest excuse for a bloating government payroll.[*]

San Francisco has at least two dozen other city employees already working directly on climate 'issues' at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of thousands of dollars...

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Cities pay huge salaries despite fiscal crises

A city nurse earned $350,000. A fire department battalion chief pulled in more than twice as much as the mayor. And a municipal park ranger took home $188,000 in overtime on top of his $71,000 salary. Such generous payouts were criticized for hastening the fiscal downfall of the city of Vallejo, which narrowly averted bankruptcy this month. But the nurse, firefighter and ranger aren't from Vallejo - they're among hundreds of top earners working for the cities of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland.

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