I prefer Calhoun's name for them: tax eaters.
California School District Owes $1 Billion On $100 Million Loan
npr ^ | Dec 7, 2012 | Richard Gonzales / FR Posted by Biser
More than 200 school districts across California are taking a second look at the high price of the debt they've taken on using risky financial arrangements. Collectively, the districts have borrowed billions in loans that defer payments for years — leaving many districts owing far more than they borrowed. (Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
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In 2010, officials at the West Contra Costa School District, just east of San Francisco, were in a bind. The district needed $2.5 million to help secure a federally subsidized $25 million loan to build a badly needed elementary school. Charles Ramsey, president of the school board, says he needed that $2.5 million upfront, but the district didn't have it. Why would you leave $25 million on the table? You would never leave $25 million on the table.
- Charles Ramsey, school board president, West Contra Costa School District. “We'd be foolish not to take advantage of getting $25 million” when the district had to spend just $2.5 million to get it, Ramsey says. “The only way we could do it was with a [capital appreciation bond].”
Those bonds, known as CABs, are unlike typical bonds, where a school district is required to make immediate and regular payments. Instead, CABs allow districts to defer payments well into the future — by which time lots of interest has accrued.In the West Contra Costa Schools’ case, that $2.5 million bond will cost the district a whopping $34 million to repay.”
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The $822,000-per-Year Bureaucrat and the Death of California
Townhall.com | Daniel J. Mitchell / Posted by Kaslin
Outrageous examples of overpaid bureaucrats:The chief bureaucrat of a low-income California city getting almost $800,000 per year. Cops in Oakland getting average compensation of $188,000. California taxpayers being forced to pay a fired bureaucrat $550,000 for unused vacation time.
(ELSEWHERE A school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand annual compensation. A Philadelphia bureaucrat, after working only 2-1/2 years, gets a guaranteed annual pension of $50,000 per year. A New York school bureaucrat w/ a $225,000 salary and $300,000 pension simultaneously. A New Jersey Turnpike employee raking in an annual $320,000.)
THERE'S MORE California is in a race with Illinois to see which state can become the Greece of America. The Golden State has a new über-bureaucrat....jaw-dropping details from a Bloomberg report.....More at townhall.com
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A Labyrinth of Govt Fraud----stories like this mean astonishingly easy, massive govt fraud.
REFERENCE Govt officials find 2nd off-the-books bank account / LAT / February 17, 2011
Montebello, Cali govt officials said they discovered yet a.n.o.t.h.e.r secret off-the-books bank account that once contained nearly $1 million in city govt funds. Officials do not know why the secret account was created, why it was never recorded on the city's general ledger or what happened to the govt money that was transferred out. One signator on the secret account was former City Manager Richard Torres. City policy generally requires the treasurer to be a signator, not the city manager. The bank holding the secret account refused to disclose to the city who the other two signators are.
Revelations about a secret Union Bank account follow news of an off-the-books account at Banco Popular discovered earlier....That account contained about $240,000 govt monies; officials also discovered records that indicated tens of thousands of govt dollars had been transferred out. They do not know to whom or why.
City govt's official banker is Bank of the West. Officials have asked for bank statements and records and are hoping to reconstruct what happened. They have also queried every member of the govt finance department to ask if they know of any other off-the-books accounts. The Union Bank account came to light when an employee
spontaneously alerted the finance director. Officials found out about the Banco Popular account when the bank contacted city govt because the account had been dormant for a while.
The news about the secret accounts comes as Montebello struggles to close a deficit that could force officials to make deep service cuts and lay off employees. Criminal probes have also begun in San Bernardino agencies for possible govt fraud.