Edhat Staff
By edhat staff
The City of Santa Barbara is expected to layoff approximately 400 employees due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Layoff notices were sent out on Friday citing an expected 25% reduction in revenue, approximately $30 – 33 million dollars.
The city’s main revenue sources stem from property taxes, sales taxes, and hotel bed taxes. Revenue from hotel bed and sales tax has almost completely stopped. The current revenue is expected to fund essential services including the fire department, police department, and utilities.
The employees expected to be laid off are considered “non-essential” due to Governor Newsom’s public health order. These include library employees, parking lot attendants, park and recreation employees, and lifeguards.
The city hopes to rehire the majority of the laid-off employees in the future.
This is a good start but to save our city they need to layoff several hundred full time, salaried employees in addition to these hourly employees. The revenue the city uses to pay for its bloated bureaucracy is all but gone for the next year at least. The city will receive a tiny fraction of ToT and sales tax normally remitted, not too mention all the fees and fines they collect. They need to lay off most of their staff and shutter all non-essential services immediately.
And they need to make the layoffs permanent. It will soon be discovered that the laid off people were not necessary for to proper functioning of a society, but the hard working people in the private sector are the ones who make good things happen.
This isn’t time for your trickle down economic rantings.
Not listed as a closed department is code enforcement.. the only department that turns a net profit due to the overload of red curbs and timed parking on most streets. Too bad they don’t kennel these dogs and let the very few citizens on the street park where they wish. Who cares, it is like a ghost town currently.
Maybe they should also lay off the city council? Those laid off are also part-time workers — all the councilmembers except for Mayor Murillo have other jobs. Along with the parking lot attendants, they too are not unionized. They’re not having a council meeting this week, so there will have been only two meetings in March.
“‘Non-essential’ … include library employees, parking lot attendants, park and recreation employees, and lifeguards.”
Funny how the “non-essential” employees are the ones who are actually visibly doing a job.
The last time I checked the list of salaried employees in the City of Santa Barbara, I saw a lot of people making $150,000 to $300,000, and I have no idea what any of these people are doing to improve my life here in Santa Barbara . . . except issuing edicts closing down businesses and public spaces . . .
. . . while collecting handsome salaries, uninterrupted, at our (taxpayers’) expense.
Nothing like social distancing when you’re sitting at home collecting your salary as usual.
Must be nice.
We are finding out that we can get by with far less than we think. Look how much pollution and traffic congestion we have eliminated. Businesses are realizing how much work can be done at home. Keep office employees working remotemy and turn all those empty offices into housing. Kill two birds with one stone. No added density in the city and no commuters. Then out of town developers can stay out of town.
Right on Chip. The city bureaucracy with their byzantine rules/requirements and the army of staff to write and enforce those rules is the number one impediment to a thriving downtown.
Yes some city employees make decent money. No, they are not part of the 1% that control the business and financial aspects of this country. The CEO of the County in charge of 1000s of employees and a huge budget makes $400K a year. How much do you think a CEO of a company with a similar budget would make? Millions.
I had to fire two employees. Now the government knows how it feels. Now the government sees that there are consequences to imposing a police state on everyone without doing any triage.
With some of the strictest building codes, most inflexible building department, and highest construction costs of any city in the country, office space can not simply be converted to housing.
I dont believe you understand what “Trickle Down” theory means Midair. I’d assume based on this post (and others) that you are likely a city employee. After all, where else but in a government bureaucracy does ignorance and ineptitude meet to produce a $100-200k a year liability? Our city survives on the gratitude of tourists and outside money. Who do you think invest in the hotels and buys the multi million dollar homes? Now that they are gone for the foreseeable future, the people who are in place to support their influx are no longer needed. To prevent a bankruptcy, every one of these people need to be let-go immediately. It is not the duty for a city of 100k people to employ a few thousand when they are not necessary. Furlough the entire city and you will see how many of these staffers are unnecessary. Tough times call for tough choices. If you want Santa Barbarta to be solvent, to rebound, the city’s headcount must be reduced drastically. This is basic econ, not a silly theory pushed by long dead politicians.
I think it’s time for City Council to volunteer their services.
I always find it telling to hear from those demanding the removal of alleged deadweight in the city govt are the first to cry out when services they once took for granted are no longer answering the phone when needed.
Fire, or lay off? And are you willing to lose 10% of the people over 70 by not quarantining? Most of us are not.
Noble sentiments, Red Creek, but perhaps some of those higher salaried employees, some of whom are making pretty obscene wages for government employees (along with very generous pensions, tenure, and benefits) could sacrifice a chunk of their salaries so some of these low-wage workers could keep their jobs.
“And are you willing to lose 10% of the people over 70 by not quarantining?” Of course not. That’s what doing triage is about — determining priorities for action. Not putting everyone under house arrest and closing down the city to all activity and movement.
In every crisis, there is a redistribution of wealth, and we know which direction it flows. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The top brass keep their jobs, and the minions get crushed underfoot.
check the”transparent california” website. it tells what public employees really make. hold on to your seat. quite revealig,
Your assessment of a Keynesian solution is backwards. The Federal Government needs to get money into the hands of the people, not the small municipalities who re-gift our money to a few workers whose entire income is garnered from the very people they serve. Paying a small % of the population from a finite pool of public resources is not tenable nor wise, nor can it stem the bleeding or the inevitable austerity. The best thing we as a small city of
When evaluating claims like this, you should consider the source, which is neither transparent, nor California.
“Transparent California” is just one of the many names used by the tax-exempt “free-market think tank” Nevada Policy Research Institute (NPRI). NPRI refuses to divulge its own funding sources, stating, “NPRI respects the privacy of our donors, which includes the amount of a donor’s gift”.
NPRI’s primary funding source, as determined by The Conservative Transparency Project, is Donors Capital Fund, a dark-money source of funding for conservative groups. Its donors also include The Cato Institute, co-founded by the Koch brothers, and organizations affiliated with the climate change denial movement.
NPRI spends 75% of its revenue on six-figure salaries and benefits. Its goal is to undermine support for employee unions nationwide, thereby decreasing salaries and increasing corporate profits.
Are you disputing the figures or just trying to muddy the waters by mixing a political agenda into the conversation? If the figures are wrong, please cite some examples. I would say that looking at the numbers, the total annual earnings are likely inflated due to the calculations of benefit costs. But the salary data is pulled from public sources, so unless you have some other citations, I will assume its accurate. But if its not, please let us know with some actual citations rather than trying to gaslight the conversation. That does not help nor does it provide any avenue for clarity on the figures or the true costs to the people.
Your ignorance of the functions of city staff is your own fault. No reason to lay them off because of your shortcomings. If you want to know try getting involved.
I believe people are reacting positively to the city laying off employees because they are generally frustrated with the city. It has nothing to do with the specific individuals being laid off, and I expect that everyone shares my sympathy for everyone who is losing their jobs as a result of the government’s response to the Corona Virus. The fact is the city has become a bloated bureaucracy that is no longer effective. For example, I would liken the city’s approach to cultivating state street business to Elvira’s approach to gardening in the Adams Family. When businesses leasing commercial space start insisting on provisions that allow them to walk away from their leases if the city won’t give them permits in a timely manner (see the recent Independent article on state street business), then we really need to rethink what we are doing. Maintaining the traditional Spanish style architecture that characterizes our city is a nice idea. However, what good is architectural review if all the businesses close and State Street turns into a giant “homeless” encampment. The city has become the problem, not the solution. Instead of helping residents and property owners make things better, the city has become an obstacle to progress. As a result, many feel the solution is to “starve the beast” and force a dramatic reduction in the size and the power of the city government. The catastrophic loss of funding that is coming in the weeks and months ahead may be a great opportunity to achieve that reduction. Get the city out of the way and business will thrive.
Not the same — the CEO if a company has to create revenue by creating a product and selling it to people willing to pay for it.
The CEO of a municipality is an administrator – nowhere in the same payscale.