City Tries To Manage Bad Press Over Budget Issues

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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Michele Norris.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

And I'm Melissa Block.

The Southern California city of Costa Mesa has notified half its public employees that they'll be laid off in six months. Officials say they can no longer afford to pay the pensions and benefits promised to city workers. Tonight, union members plan to protest the cuts before the city council, which they accuse of playing politics with employees' lives.

NPR's Carrie Kahn has the story.

(Soundbite of machinery)

CARRIE KAHN: In Costa Mesa city maintenance yard, Steve Bradford says he always gets the dirtiest jobs.

Mr. STEVE BRADFORD (City Mechanic): I work on the filthy sweepers. I work on the sewer trucks and the rollers. All that stuff that's just disgusting and hard to get to.

KAHN: Bradford got one of the more than 200 layoff notices issued to Costa Mesa workers. He's been a city mechanic for 10 years and says, despite the grime, he loves his job.

Mr. BRADFORD: It's a good honest place to work. Good people. It's kind of like working for the city of Mayberry, I think.

(Soundbite of laughter)

KAHN: Costa Mesa is a nice place to work and live. It's less than three miles from the beach, about an hour's drive to the mountains and there's plenty of upscale shopping at one of the regions toniest malls. But finances are tight and officials say they had to move fast, issuing layoff notices and finding ways to outsource everything from firefighting to street cleaning.

Pension costs take up about 15 percent of the city's $93 million budget. Without changes, that cost could balloon to as much as a quarter of the budget in just five years.

Billy Folsom has lived and worked in the city for three decades. He has seven children, three in college. He says morale now is dismal. One worker reportedly distraught over the layoffs, jumped to his death from the roof of City Hall.

Mr. BILLY FOLSOM (City Mechanic): It was depressing. We've gone through different economies before but this time around, it's just been handled in a way that just not been done right.

KAHN: The city is still taking bids to outsource services. Final cost savings aren't known yet. And although city officials handed out hundreds of layoff notices, they admit they don't know exactly how many workers will lose their jobs.

But Jim Righeimer, mayor pro tem of Costa Mesa, says there's no doubt outsourcing will save money.

Mayor Pro Tem JIM RIGHEIMER (Costa Mesa): If you go to two or three week's vacation instead five week's vacation, if you don't have to put 30 percent in pension, it's not too hard to figure out that the loaded cost per hour to get a job done is going to be less.

KAHN: Righeimer says if the city doesn't act now, it will soon spend money on employee pensions than on paving roads and cleaning the parks.

Mayor Pro Tem RIGHEIMER: You're just squeezing out everything else we do in the city.

KAHN: Costa Mesa is like many cities across the country with large financial commitments to public pension funds. Republican leaders see the city's dramatic attempt to reduce public costs as part of a larger national movement.

This is Scott Baugh, head of the Orange County Republican Party, speaking to local Tea Party activists.

Mr. SCOTT BAUGH (Chairman, Orange County Republican Party): Ground Zero is right here in Costa Mesa for this revolution.

KAHN: Costa Mesa Republicans may be scoring points within the party, but the dramatic layoff plan may not resonate in heavily Democratic California, says Raph Sonenshein, a politics professor at Cal State, Fullerton.

Professor RAPH SONENSHEIN (Political Science, Cal State, Fullerton): It isn't setting off the kind of thing you see in the Midwest, where first you have Wisconsin, then Ohio, and you have Indiana and all these states sort of going heavily after the public employees. This is tending to be a little bit more isolated to Costa Mesa.

KAHN: That's little solace for 58-year-old city mechanic Billy Folsom. He's getting ready to close the maintenance shop down on this day. He says every year someone is getting blamed for the city's problems. Last year, the mayor blamed illegal immigrants. This year, he says it's the public employees.

Mr. FOLSOM: We didn't cause a recession; we're just going to have to pay for it.

KAHN: He says he hopes the city council changes its mind before the end of summer, when he'll have to close the doors of the shop for good.

Carrie Kahn, NPR News.

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