Local governments in California are borrowing money this year at a rate unmatched in the past decade to pay for growing deficits in their pension funds, according to an Associated Press analysis. So far in 2004, local governments with pensions outside the giant California Public Employees Retirement System have issued nearly $1.7 billion in bonds just to pay for existing pension shortfalls. With three months left in 2004, that's 50 percent higher than any year in the last decade, according to data from the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission. The stock market's poor performance, shrinking tax revenues and the...