Why does the County need a new building for its retirement plan? What a waste of taxpayer money!
Taxpayer dollars down the drain:
The board of the Kern County Employees' Retirement Association approved the purchase of 1.25 acres of ground across from the Park at River Walk Wednesday for the construction of new offices.
Escrow on the land is expected to close on Dec. 2, said Dan Robinson of American Realty Advisors, who handled the transaction for KCERA.
The land cost somewhere around $800,000 said KCERA boss Ann Holdren. Efforts are underway to hire an architectual firm to design the new office and a contractor to build it.
Currently KCERA inhabits offices on the first floor of the Kern County Administrative Center on Truxtun Avenue.
No surprise on the next story, the city has been behind the curve for sometime on the coming tsunami of declining tax revenues.
City now $14 million in the hole.
Hit with declining revenue, city officials have frozen more than 100 jobs.
“But that’s not nearly enough to deal with the situation that we face,” City Manager Alan Tandy told the City Council Wednesday. The city’s sales tax has declined, and the city now expects to bring in $2.1 million less in sales tax than it budgeted for just six months ago, said Finance Director Nelson Smith.And sinking property values have led to zero growth in property taxes, with an expected decline next year, Smith said.
The city will also stop setting aside money for its future health-care liabilities, Tandy said. But that saves the city a total of about $8 million — and the city needs to cut about $14 million.
8 comments:
You are much too kind, BB. "morons" is the word I would have used for our city officials.
Still lurking about, but man I hate trying to login to Blogger!
I enjoyed your post about the new NASCAR track, and also about the recent "surprising" loss at SJ Bank. SJ is gonna be in a world of hurt soon... they should have invested in taverns and speakeasies, LOL.
Best wishes,
IdahoSpud.
Thanks IdahoSpud!!
I am afraid that even an Uber-Bear like me may have been too optomistic.
CSUB condos for everyone.
Good questions Bubble. I called in to Ann Holdren this morning to ask how they will pay for the land — which is being bought from Castle & Cooke.
Holdren said the property will be held as a KCERA investment, paid for out of the Associations trust fund.
As for why it's needed, she said she's running 21 staff out of 4,000 square feet in an area of the county building that can't be expanded.
James Burger
Californian staff writer
Thanks James!!
James -
The county sure wants to get that land near the park...is this the same land that they wanted the Federal building on? Maybe someone has ties to C&C?
I think they could do a lot better job of managing our money - ie not paying top dollar to buy up this land and build an unneeded building.
With the market down, I would bet their plan will be underfunded..if they have several million lying around to buy and build this building why not shore up the retirement plan? Oh I know why, because they can act like the rest of the government and just take more money from the taxpayers?
Have the county call Paulson. Maybe he can help. hehehe
That’s a 9’x10’ space per employee. Most cubicles are smaller than that.
The front office at my shop is 8’x 9 1/2’ ,and I have plenty of room for desk work.
Why can't they move into one of the vacating Mervyn's?
Post a Comment