Why are the rats surprised? When you drive taxes up, you simply increase the incentive to find, uh, *creative* means to pay less.
Our freeway system through Oxnard and Ventura has been in the process of major re-engineering the last 2 years, with still a year or so to go. Was supposed to be done beginning of the this year.
I was on a prime-time, mid-afternoon run today, sunny skies, past the main area of work. Not a single solitary Cal-trans worker there, no activity whatsoever... and 3 very HUGE cranes sitting idle by the side of the freeway. Completely idle, and same story a few hours earlier!!! And I see it just like that so often when driving by (these idle cranes probably costing us taxpayers at least $5K to $8K for the daily rental.)
Local newspaper did an article on it a couple months ago. When they asked the Cal-Trans guy who's in charge of the project why it was so far behind schedule, the guy had the nerve to say "gosh, these projects are never on time, everyone expects delays. We're doing all we can, it's just the way things go."
Can you just imagine saying that to your boss, when you tell him a deadline on a job for one of your best customers "just won't be on time. Sorry, boss!" Yeah that would work on my job, no problem.
Amazing! And I'll write my nice checks to the state and to the federal fovernment in April (after my employer has been deducting violently for the whole year anyway!), and those checks will pay for a couple of those huge cranes to sit idle for a couple days.
Recall in 1994 after the big Northridge earthquake, Cal-Trans hired an independent contractor to rebuild one of the main LA freeways that had been heavily damaged. They negotiated an incentive that for every day ahead of schedule that the contractor completed the work, the contractor would receive a $1 million bonus. It was scheduled to take 6-8 months. Surprise, the contractor completed it in less than 3 months and got a gigantic, multi-million dollar bonus. Proving of course that it can be done quickly and efficiently. There just is usually no incentive to do so.
I am so proud of our government agencies. They deserve more and more of my money, especially since I know they plan so carefully and spend my money so wisely.