"What have you actually done, Supervisor Gioia?"
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Posted on Sat, Jul. 01, 2006

KEN HAMBRICK From the community Board is again ignoring grand jury report

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/14946956.htm

Once again the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors is ignoring a major financial problem by unjustly criticizing a grand jury report.

They did it with the county pension problem (and the grand jury was proved to be right). Now they are doing the same thing with the grand jury report "County Ignores Retiree Health Costs."

The new report points out the county is badly underfunding the retiree health plan accumulating an unfunded liability of at least $2.4 billion.

It also makes the point that large cuts in important county services will have to be made for many years to fund this.

Board of Supervisors Chairman John Gioia reacted as expected. To quote the Times (June 9), "The chairman of the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors reacted to the report with outrage. Supervisor John Gioia said the county began tackling the retiree health tab in the summer of 2005 and has made plenty of progress."

What have you actually done, Supervisor Gioia? The county delayed having the actuarial study done in time for union negotiations, which are now into their ninth month.

There is talk of waiting 15 years to qualify for lifetime health care, but that will only impact future retirees and do nothing for the $2.4 billion debt.

Upping co-pays for services? That has a minuscule effect on the cost. Asking the state and federal government to pay a share (the county administers a number of state and federal programs) -- that could have an impact, but why has that not been worked on?

Even now the discussions have been delayed.

What they have done is hide a vital report, delay the actuarial study, and continue to downplay the impact of this very real cost.

John Sweeten (then county administrator) had a report from Ira Summer (actuarial consultant) on Sept. 5, 2005.

The numbers were hidden until the grand jury forced the county to give up the memo in February 2006.

It's clear that the board was hiding this information and one guess is it did this because Gioia was running for re-election and DeSaulnier is campaigning for state Assembly.

But for whatever reason, the numbers in the Summer memo were not shared with the public.

The county administrator denied on several occasions the county had received any estimate of the liability and in fact told the credit rating agencies in November 2005 that the county had not received any numbers.

The board was finally forced to hire a consultant for a full evaluation of the liability and authorized this in its meeting on Feb. 28.

This evaluation was presented to the Finance Committee of the board on May 4. The report says the liability is $2.4 billion.

Gioia's other claim that the county "has made plenty of progress" is totally false. The only things that have been done are to receive the actuary's report and to ask the staff to evaluate the alternatives presented by the consultant.

The staff wasn't even going to be given a timeline to report back until a member of the audience asked the Finance Committee to set a schedule.

We are going to continue to get the political spin that the retiree health numbers are no big deal. The fact is they are a big deal. Our number is $2.4 billion. Other counties (several of our peer counties), which are much larger have a smaller number than ours.

The truth is the board does not have the courage to take on the public employee unions. They are too busy accepting their campaign contributions and endorsements to move on to higher political office.

For far too long the public employee unions and the board have been on the same side of the negotiating table leaving the taxpayers to pick up the tab.

Until we break the stranglehold the public employee unions have on the board and their ownership of most of the supervisors, we will continue to see the downward spiral in county finances continue.

The result of this spiral will be continued cuts in vital services to those citizens who badly need them.

Hambrick is a resident of Walnut Creek and is chairman of the Alliance of Contra Costa Taxpayers.