WHERE THE MONEY GOES – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  California is near bankruptcy, and yet the liberals out there show no signs of compromise on anything.  After all, the "people" must have their cake.  But which people?

There is a budding scandal in California over the salaries and pensions paid to public employees.  There was a time when those joining the civil service would give up a certain amount of salary – compared with the private sector – in exchange for the security, the benefits, and the satisfaction of a public job.  Those days are long past.  Today you give up nothing, especially in the golden state.  From the very liberal San Francisco Chronicle:

More than 1 in 3 of San Francisco's nearly 27,000 city workers earned $100,000 or more last year - a number that has been growing steadily for the past decade.

The number of city workers paid at least $100,000 in base salary totaled 6,449 last year. When such extras as overtime are included, the number jumped to 9,487 workers, nearly eight times the number from a decade ago. And that calculation doesn't include the cost of often-generous city benefits such as health care and pensions.

The pay data obtained by The Chronicle show that many of the high earners bolstered their base pay with overtime and "other pay," a category that includes payouts for unused vacation days and extra money for working late-night shifts.

Leading 2009's $100,000 Club was the Police Department's Charles Keohane, a deputy chief who retired midyear.

His total payout was $516,118, city records show, the bulk of which came from cashing out stored-up vacation, sick days and comp time. Several other police employees who changed rank or retired also saw their annual earnings swell.

And...

The average city worker salary in San Francisco is $93,000 before benefits, according to Deputy City Controller Monique Zmuda. The data take into account everyone from park gardeners and street cleaners to attorneys and technology specialists.

COMMENT:  There's more where this came from, in other states as well.  But public-service unions have veto power in the Democratic Party, so don't expect anything to be done soon.  After all, we don't want to cheat "the kids."

April 27, 2010