Richard Rider's Plan for Saving San Diego

By Richard Rider

Richard Rider's Plan for Saving San Diego

Democracy is messy. But perhaps therein lies its strength. As Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government + except for all the rest." In this candidate-rich special election for mayor, the voters have a terrific opportunity to cast a vote for how they want San Diego to deal with its fiscal disaster. There are several options + ranging from abject surrender (let the courts take charge) to taxpayer rebellion. Of course, I represent the latter position.

The good news is that this race is a battle over issues, not a confrontation over personalities. With all the debates scheduled, voters will have many opportunities to consider their options, and vote according to their preference.

One of the interesting things that happens in such a contest is that candidates start stealing each other's ideas. And that can be a good thing. Each candidate can learn from others.

So first consider where we mayoral candidates seem to have reached agreement:
1. We all want the 2002 sleazy pension increase declared illegal and rolled back. Most of us want the year 2000 and post-1996 pension increases also declared illegal and repealed. Of course, none of us has any control over what the courts might decide in this legal struggle, claims of certainty notwithstanding.
2. We all want more efficiency in government. We all are adopting many of Carl DeMaio's excellent ideas for reorganizing and streamlining city government, such as the innovative "311" call center. Of course, have you ever heard ANY candidate say he was in FAVOR of waste, fraud and inefficiency?
3. We all favor getting the city unions to return to the negotiating table and make concessions on their huge pensions and high salaries. But none of my opponents have a plan for just how to make that happen.
4. We all want to "drop the DROP" program.
5. We all want open and honest government. It's sad we have to have to make that point, but our present crop of politicians has taught us all that one cannot assume that a candidate supports such a common sense policy. Rather than doing a "me too" speech, let me clearly state where my approach to San Diego's fiscal problems DIFFERS from my opponents. The pension debacle is more than just the huge funding deficit. It is more than the dishonesty and criminal activity that tried to hide the deal. It is more than the hundreds of millions of dollars the city will have to pay annually to pay for these pensions. The fundamental problem is the basic injustice of paying city "civil servants" FAR more than those folks working in the private sector receive for doing the same type of work. These are the people who pay the bulk of the taxes that pay the city employees. Contrary to what we've been led to believe, most city workers make 25% or higher salaries than private sector workers. To add insult to injury, city workers receive pensions two to four times larger than the pensions received by taxpayers working in the private sector. We need to remind these city workers that they work for US -- not the other way around. This crushing payroll cost is breaking the back of our city's budget. According to the Performance Institute, 54% of the city's general fund budget goes for salaries. Add in the cost for the opulent benefits, and one finds that 78% of the city budget goes to city workers. And that does not budget a dime to close the huge multibillion pension and health care deficit that gets larger every year. Clearly, this injustice is not economically sustainable. But the city labor union bosses will NEVER willingly give up their gold-plated compensation packages. Since we can't count on the judges and the courts to overturn this injustice, today I have brought with me the book that will force the public employee unions to make the necessary concessions + or cost them their jobs. It is the book that public employees fear the most. It's the Yellow Pages.
1. We need to apply what is called the "Yellow Pages test." Many of the services currently handled by city departments, with their bulky bureaucracies and overpaid workers, can be provided at considerably less cost by eager businesses and workers we can find in the Yellow Pages. Furthermore, we are not limited to picking just one company + we can have a number of companies bid for the job, allowing competition to get us the best service at the best cost.
2. Even better, if the contractor doesn't meet our requirements, we can fire him and find another business to do the job. Try firing a single city employee, let alone an entire department!
3. Here are just a few examples of city services that can be put out for competitive bid: a. Printing and copying The city says it cost as much as 15 to 25 cents apiece to make copies. That's what they charge citizens. Yet by looking in the Yellow Pages, we can find a company such as Staples where we can get copies made for 4 cents a copy + cheaper in bulk or on contract. The county of San Diego was doing internal printing that cost taxpayers 5 cents a page + but now they use an outside printing service for only a penny a page. And consider this + as of this week, the federal government no long prints the postage stamps! The government is saving tens of millions of dollars annually by using a private printing company to produce all future stamps. The city should do the same. Contract out as much printing and copying as possible, as soon as possible. b. Libraries Riverside County uses a private company to run its public libraries, saving over 30% what it would cost to provide the service with a government library department. c. Trash pick-up MOST cities in San Diego County already use private contractors to pick up trash. This is nothing radical, but it does save the city taxpayers a bundle. The city should still pay for the trash pickup as required by the city Charter, but it does not follow that we must use government employees to do the job. Recycling also can be contracted out. d. IT (Information Technology) services The county has successfully moved to using private companies to provide all their IT services, saving a chunk of money in the process. The city can do the same. The city's bungled effort to "privatize" the city data processing operation is a classic example of how NOT to contract out a city service. No competitive bidding occurred, and no effective method of monitoring performance was established. Like everything else, there is a right way and the wrong way to contract out a government service. e. Road repair In this budget crunch, the city recently hired 40 more workers to fill the potholes. For the same money, we could have had a private company provide more workers and filled a lot more potholes. f. Street lights Recent stories highlighted that the city could not change the city street light bulbs fast enough because of budget constraints. But the solution they won't consider is going to the Yellow Pages and finding firms ready and willing to change the bulbs for a fraction of the cost of having government electricians do it. g. Automobile maintenance The city thinks it saves money by providing in-house maintenance for its fleet of vehicles with its government garage. But Carl DeMaio's Performance Institute found that the annual cost of maintenance per car came to over $8,800! Any garage in the Yellow Pages could provide such maintenance at an average cost at least 80% less than that! h. Park and Recreation Department Much of the operation and maintenance of our parks, swimming pools and community centers can be handled by private firms at considerable savings. i. Parking meter maintenance and collection This ain't rocket science. Private firms can do such work efficiently at considerably less cost. j. Painting The city pays a salary of $43,960 annually for a painter. The average private sector painter costs only $32,000. And that's not counting the huge cost of the city pension and health care plan. k. Planning Department There are private sector companies that provide excellent planning services if the city is interested. l. Qualcomm Stadium and Petco Ballpark operations m. Operation of the Convention Center n. City airports o. City golf courses p. Street sweeping q. Fire fighting Okay, THIS one is tougher + at least from a political standpoint. It is all but impossible to replace the city fire department with a private contractor. But what we CAN do is reduce the permanent staffing of fire stations from 4 fire fighters to 3 or even 2 per shift. 85% of the fire fighter calls today are MEDICAL calls, and 2 fire fighters could handle that. When there IS a fire call, the 2-3 core fire fighters can be supplemented with either cross-trained police personnel (this is done in a number of towns) or by on-call Reserve Fire Fighters who carry pagers or cell phones with GPS capabilities to tell them where they are needed. Police usually show up at a fire before the fire fighters anyway -- as fire fighters, they could do more than just stand around doing crowd control. The net result of this reform would be a 20% to 40% reduction in the number of highly paid fire fighters who 98% of the time are not fighting fires. Given the HUGE cost of fire fighters, the savings would be dramatic, leaving us with more funds to provide needed modern fire fighting equipment, more well-trained Reserve Fire Fighters for the occasional major conflagration, and perhaps more fire fighting stations. The only city function substantially immune to such competitive bidding is the police. But even within that department, there may be opportunities to put certain administrative support functions out for bid. We could use the "Yellow Pages test" to get competitive bids on most government functions. My goal would be to get 8,000 of the 11,000 city jobs to be either open to Yellow Page bidding, or eliminated through reforms and efficiencies. But it is important to understand that the City Departments affected would be welcome to submit their own competitive bid to try to retain the work for their department. At that point, city employees and their labor union bosses would have to make a decision + either dramatically cut their wages and fringe benefits while providing more efficient service, or seek employment elsewhere. Either way, we the taxpayers win. This is not theory. In the 1990's, Indianapolis Mayor Steven Goldsmith instituted widespread competitive bidding for many city services. As a result, some functions were contracted out to private companies, but a number of functions remained with city employees after they worked hard to make themselves competitive. The savings that would result form all of this competitive bidding and the resulting pension reduction is huge, but hard to pin down. I'd estimate that such a policy once fully implemented would save the city well over $250 million annually. And this could be done fairly rapidly + it should be completed within three years of taking office. This policy doesn't even include the savings available from widespread implementation of the DeMaio reforms, which would save tens of millions of dollars annually. These combined massive savings would be more than enough to pay whatever remaining pension obligation and deficit the city would retain responsibility for. The bottom line is that our budget would swing from a deficit to a surplus while the city would still provide the services citizens expect from local government. This surplus would present us with the unique opportunity to make tax REBATES to the citizens of San Diego. Now THAT'S a turnaround I think citizens would support!

APPEASEMENT, THE DANGER WE NOW FACE It is tragic that our city has steadily increasing revenues, while at the same time it is cutting services while whining about "budget shortfalls." What we must NOT do is surrender to the labor unions. We must not resign ourselves to paying bloated payroll and pension costs to maintain labor peace and buy labor support + the standard policy of our present politicians. Most of my opponents are, to varying degrees, making just such a decision. They are seeking ways to raise money to pay the budget and pension shortfall, and that's the wrong way to go. We must make a stand now. NO NEW TAXES! NO NEW FEES! NO LAND SALES! NO PENSION OBLIGATION BONDS! At this point, all such options, regardless of what the politicians say, are for one purpose only + to allow the city to keep paying the bloated, unjustified pensions. By limiting the city's ability to tax or borrow its way out of its predicament, we force the city to face squarely the mistakes of its past.

Additional Steps to Control the Budget NO MORE PRO SPORTS SUBSIDIES Cancel the downtown library California state legislators no longer receive pensions + neither should city politicians I'll take a 30% pay cut for the term. How can one demand that employees adjust their pay without leading by example?

How Can a Mayor Do All This with a Hostile City Council? First we give the city council a brief period when they can be part of the reform process. Assuming they don't cooperate, as mayor I will form a coalition to put the needed reforms on the ballot + from contracting out mandates to Performance Institute efficiencies. Time is short, so the City Council must quickly decide if they are part of the solution, or remain part of the problem. Necessity is the mother of invention. And now is time to put in place the innovations and initiatives needed to return San Diego to the friendly, efficient city in which we all want to live.