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It’s reality time for local governments Dear local government officials and public employees, I feel your pain. The local economy has gone rotten, and tax revenues are far below what you’d ever thought you would experience. As one who signs paychecks for a shrinking number of employees of a small business, I completely — and I mean, completely — understand. Some of you local officials have responded much like some local businesses have — reluctantly cutting costs and hoping against hope that things would get better the next month. But things haven’t gotten better, and may get worse. I’d like to share some thoughts with you, and with the folks who pay the taxes, the ones who draw publicly-funded paychecks and the people who read this newspaper and patronize our clients, the advertisers. Among governments and government workers, it’s time for some reality. Most small businesses and all my advertisers have met and responded to reality well before public officials and public employees have. In the newspaper business, we’re in a fight for survival. Papers, both big city dailies and small-town weeklies and all in between, have been struck by two converging perfect storms: the receding economy and the titanic shift of ad dollars away from print products and into more exotic media, including the Internet. Three years ago this paper had its best year ever. Three years later, I’ve had to lay off a third of our staff — good people, talented people, but people I could no longer afford to pay. Our advertisers — from car dealers to real estate brokers to retailers — are hurting. And we hurt when our advertisers hurt. We keep looking for that elusive “bottom” that the financial pundits keep talking about but which seems to be farther off in the future. This is to explain to local officials and public employees — public works department workers, teachers, police and firefighters, city hall employees, school receptionists, etc. — that I understand something about falling revenue and firing people I can no longer afford to pay. Folks, you are going to have to suck it up and slim down local governments, including especially the bloated school system. Shuck it all down to the bare essentials. The school system, particularly, with a nearly $200 million annual budget, has far too many chiefs and mid-level managers. Get rid of them. Fewer teachers are going to have to teach larger numbers of students, and everyone — especially parents and PTO presidents and booster club members — are going to be forced to get by with a lot less than they are used to. The money just ain’t there, folks. It ain’t going to be there for at least one year and maybe several years. Some teachers will lose their jobs. I’m sorry. That’s just reality. A lot of support personnel will lose their jobs. I’m sorry. That’s just financial reality. Say hello to some of my favorite folks — my former employees and my friends — already standing in the unemployment lines. Most local government employees will — and in reality should — lose some of their fully taxpayer-funded benefits. Yes, cops, deputies and firefighters, you, too. It’s just plain reality. Nobody gets a pass on reality. (Except for federal workers — the federal government is the only growth sector in sight, with jobs for life.) And really, why should you? We’re all in this painful period together. And everybody on the local public payroll is going to have to share the same pain the civilian population is having to bear. Please, public employees, don’t whine and buck against this necessity. If you complain about cutbacks that private employees have long ago suffered through, you will discover an even more painful reality called public backlash. So please don’t claim some kind of special privilege or position that entitles government workers to escape the privations being suffered by the vast majority of people who pay your salaries and benefits. We’re in this pain together. And if we stop the whining and stop complaining about the unfairness of it all, we’ll get through this to the other side. However tough it gets, I expect this newspaper team to pull through. Whatever it looks like and in whatever form you choose to read it, we will continue to produce a report of local news and events. However tough it gets, you public employees need to step up to the plate, take the same medicine everyone else is being forced to swallow and resolve to pull together to the other side. Local leaders, stop denying reality and cut what and whom you have to cut. Don’t seek tax increases. Live within the income you will be getting. That’s what we do in small businesses like this newspaper. We live within our means. We hope for better days, but we live — and pay our bills — in the reality of today. We hire — and fire — accordingly. We do what’s necessary to get the job done. Local government — especially the long-bloated school system — should do the same. Come on now. Let’s get the job done. login to post comments | Cal Beverly's blog
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