Category: City finance
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Pension Liabilities
My final post in this series on El Cerrito’s fiscal governance history is about everyone’s favorite topic, pension liabilities. After this, I’m going to spend some time looking towards the future, because honestly I’m a little tired of the past decade and I’d like to think about something more aspirational for a minute. But I…
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The Balanced Budget
A confession: I’m letting myself get sucked into Nextdoor arguments again. I know it’s not necessarily the most productive use of my time, but I sometimes I can’t resist. It reminds me of this classic xkcd comic, Duty Calls. I want to share a (relatively) quick note on budgeting, reflecting on some of the back-and-forth…
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The State Audit Days
It’s a little tricky to talk about the period of economic crisis that El Cerrito recently went through, because it doesn’t exactly have an agreed-upon name. I started out thinking “The Financial Crisis of Circa 2019” because that’s the year when a lot of things seem to have come to light, but that kind of…
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City Staff and Salaries
A common refrain of certain folks who raise concerns about El Cerrito’s financial health is that we have city staffing and salary “bloat.” And it’s true, staffing is by far the largest part of our budget—particularly fire and police. But how does one determine what level of staffing is “appropriate” for a given city, and…
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State of City Finances
The financial situation of our city is one of the major hot topics in El Cerrito politics, so I figure it makes sense to start there. A lot of my initial impressions—particularly from reading the ECCRG blog—suggested a city in financial shambles, and indeed, there was undeniably a low point our recent history. But before…