GENEROUS TO A FAULT

California
How can cities escape the crushing burden of overly-generous benefits packages for city workers and retirees? Declare bankruptcy...

Vallejo, a mid-sized California city home to nearly 120,000 people, can no longer afford the jaw-dropping salaries it has provided city workers. For example:

• Last year, 292 out of 411 Vallejo employees were paid more than $100,000.
• Vallejo's city manager earns nearly $317,000, more than even Vice President Cheney.
• A police captain earns $306,000 a year in pay and benefits (six times what the average Vallejo schoolteacher earns).
• A police lieutenant earns $240,146 a year.
• The average firefighter earns $171,000 a year.
• When public safety workers retire after age 50, they receive 90 percent of their top salary.
• Wages and benefits swallowed more than 75 percent of what was available in the city's general fund in 2007.
• Vallejo is currently facing a daunting deficit of nearly $17 million dollars.

Experts agree that other state and local governments may face a similar predicament in the future. Judging from the ominous mix of mounting costs for energy and food; declining property-tax and sales revenue, and astoundingly generous pension and health-care commitments to public workers.

[of course, they're all unionized]

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