MONTHLY MEETING $20

Remember when the groundbreaking report on OPEB (Other Post Employment Benefits) for school districts and city governments in Contra Costa County was published?

That was primarily the work of this month’s guest speaker, Gary Craft, founder and principal of Craft Consulting Group. Gary will be using his OPEB update as a springboard for an analysis of what is going on in Calironia government that has been keeping us from solving problems and what really needs to be done.

Craft Consulitng Group is a Lafayette, CA based consulting firm that assists private and public sector clients in developing successful strategies to compete in the new economy.

We will also being discussing issues updates and taking positions on some additional local ballot items.

NOTE LOCATION HYATT SUMMERFIELD SUITES 2611 Contra Costa Blvd, Pleasant Hill. Located just off 680 with plenty of parking.

RSVP
Payment for all reservations is required. Early registration is suggested due to limited seating. Reservations can be made by phone, e-mail or at www.cocotax.org. If you have questions, please call me at 925-228-5610 or e-mail me at krishunt@cocotax.org. Prepayment is greatly appreciated. Checks should be mailed to: P.O. Box 27, Martinez, CA 94553, payment can be made online through Paypal on the CoCoTax website.

MONTHLY MEETING $20

NOTE LOCATION
HYATT SUMMERFIELD SUITES 2611 Contra Costa Blvd, Pleasant Hill. Located just off 680 with plenty of parking.

This is your opportunity to find out what is going on with California’s economy
Well-known Bay Area economist Gary E. Schlossberg is the featured speaker at the Friday, June 25th breakfast meeting of the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association. We are inundated daily with information about the economy but with little context. Here is your opportunity to ask those questions of an expert whose job it is to evaluate that input.

As senior economist with Wells Fargo, Gary Schlossberg is responsible for assessing the economic environment and providing input to the equity and fixed income portfolio management teams at Wells Capital Management which has over $349 billion assets under management. In this capacity he makes presentations to clients, prospects, and investment staff analyzing prospects for the financial markets. He is kwown as a terrific speaker.

Schlossberg entered the financial industry in 1972 as a researcher at the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve Board covering international economic conditions and joined Wells Fargo in 1974. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the City University of New York and a master’s degree from The Pennsylvania State University. Schlossberg is widely quoted a variety of news and industry publications in the Bay Area and national media.

RSVP
Payment for all reservations is required. Early registration is suggested due to limited seating. Reservations can be made by phone, e-mail or at www.cocotax.org. If you have questions, please call me at 925-228-5610 or e-mail me at krishunt@cocotax.org. Prepayment is greatly appreciated. Checks should be mailed to: P.O. Box 27, Martinez, CA 94553, payment can be made on line through Paypal on the CoCoTax website.

Kris Hunt
Executive Director

Prop 16 – YES: Imposes Two-Thirds Vote for Local Public Electricity Providers.

CoCoTax did not take positions on other issues. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association did not take a position on Prop 16, but did take a “Yes” position on Prop 13 and “NO” on Props 14 and 15.

LOCAL MEASURES:

Measure C – NO: Mount Diablo Unified School District Bonds
Measure D – NO: West Contra Costa Unified School District Bonds

- The school board first considered a parcel tax that would pay for the kinds of things they need, teacher salaries, maintenance, etc. When told it would not pass with the required 2/3 vote the Board decided to go for a $348 million in bonds that cannot be used to pay for what the Board thought they needed (bonds are used for buildings, etc.)
- However, in order to be able to tell voters (and kudos to Dan Borenstein for uncovering all of this) that their tax rate would not increase, the Board decided to issue the bonds but delay paying for most of them until 2031 when a previous bond issue is paid off. That costly decision could mean that the $348 million in bonds would cost taxpayers as much as $1.87 BILLION.
- In addition, many of the items listed are really maintenance issues which means the Board has been neglecting that important aspect of school operations.

Sadly, Dan Borenstein revealed in his May 2 Contra Costa Times column that when the School Superintendent was asked about total cost of the bonds, he had no idea because the District had not even bothered to calculate it. That is unforgivable.

When I recently spoke with one of the members of the committee that supported this bond and he proudly bragged that they would be able to put solar panels on the schools, save energy, and then instead of paying back these expensive bonds, would put the money into the General Fund. (Comment: this is clearly their way of doing an end run around a parcel tax). I pointed out to him that this is like putting today’s lunch on a credit card and paying for it (plus interest) over 40 years. He had no clue that this is what they were doing.

The mantra of CoCoTax in our critical education role has been that “Bonds aren’t free!” but not even we would have anticipated how uninformed and unapologetic the Mt. Diablo school board would be for Measure C.

The taxpayers and voters of the District should not make the same mistake the school board did – reject Measure C.