The Tattler Helps Rescue Sierra Madre: How Our Now 6% UUT City Can Save a Cool $322,649 a Year!

The Tattler: Helping rescue Sierra Madre!

As you may recall, during the run-up to last April's voter verdict on Measure UUT, City Hall was claiming that it would lose about half a million big ones for every 2% the UUT went down. So in 2015 at 8% they'd be down $500,000, and in 2016 at 6% they'd lose a cool $1,000,000 over what they'd been receiving.

Which is why the utility tax slap happy defenders of Measure UUT kept saying it would cost the City of Sierra Madre's local government agency a million big ones a year should the voters turn it down. Or, to put it on the Josh Moran scale, the approximate cost of 250,000 refreshing grande' cups of Starbucks latte,' with that always essential extra shot added. Only the most callow of coffee parvenus would ever drink their latte' any other way. I'm sorry, but that is just how I feel.

The threat heard loud and often from certain concerned persons is that this loss of revenue would lead to such dire consequences as the closing of the Library, outsourcing the Sierra Madre Police Department, and the end to our sweet little arrangement with the Paramedics. Defibrillators and all. In other words, just general chaos, mayhem and some of the milder forms of rioting in the street. With decorum, of course. Please remember where you are.

We here at The Tattler would hate to see any of that happen. We were also tickled pink to see Measure UUT go down in flames. Something that may cause some of those among us to sense a contradiction. But we're not like that. Well, not often.

So we put a pencil to paper and I believe we have come up with a way to have our cake and allow the City to eat some, too. And you know how they love themselves some yummy cake.

You may recall that on Monday we ran the above chart, which was created for us by our friends at TransparentCalifornia.com. Note that the cost of those very generous health, dental and vision care plans we give to our city's Top 10 most benefit enriched employees average a ridiculously high $29,601 a year. Also note that the cost of such a health benefits to the average American citizen is right around $7,000. In our view this is quite a discrepancy.

We also made this following observation:

It is important to note that there would be a potential savings of $226,000 a year if these top 10 city government employees simply received an average costing health plan. That is a lot of money. And in a city where we have been forced to accept two water rate hikes in 5 years, nearly 100% in combined increases, it is an unconscionable amount.

$226,000 a year is a lot of dough in anybody's estimation. Even City Hall would be impressed by such a figure. But then last night it occurred to me, what if all of those health, dental and vision plans offered by we the people to our city's somewhat overcompensated employees were brought down to that national average of $7,000 per year? How much money could we save then?

Below is a chart which details the compensation received by our full-time City of Sierra Madre employees. The cost of their health, dental and vision plans are broken out on the right. Those figures are all over the map, as you can clearly see. Whatever you do, don't blame me. I'm just the messenger.

:~ click to enlarge ~:

So what we have done here is add up the costs of all of those yearly platinum health care plan costs detailed in the column titled "Health, Dental and Vision." That number comes out to $560,649. Or way more than half of what the City of Sierra Madre will lose every year when our UUT here goes down to 6% in 2016.

There are 34 health, vision and dental plans listed here that are above the national average of $7,000. 34 times $7,000 comes to $238,000 per year. Subtract that from our yearly nut of $560,649 and we the taxpaying people of Sierra Madre could save $322,649 every year! Or approximately a third of that yearly $1,000,000 lost due to the sunsetting of the UUT.

We're well on our way to fiscal bliss. As I always like to say, we're here to help.

And more than glad to do it.

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