The most frequently asked question I get about government is this – if we’re so broke that we can’t afford essential services, why are so few people concerned about the money we waste due to bad decisions or excess spending? I always give the same answer – it’s the brother-in-law effect. I’m going to explain the brother-in-law effect, then you can retain this column and the next time we err and no one cares, just take it out and read it.
In 2009, San Benito’s in-county, full-time and part-time jobs totaled just 38.7 percent of the population; Monterey County was 53.5, Santa Cruz 54.4 and Santa Clara 62.7 percent. In areas such as ours with limited economic opportunities, the public sector is the biggest and best employer and public jobs, along with government spending, turn into a spoils system. Spending becomes more important than the cost of public service because employment cutbacks or expenditure reductions are going to impact a lot of voters, relatives and friends, including your brother-in-law. There is no other explanation for the local grin-and-bear-it attitude towards these conditions.
When Hollister finally received approval for reuse of $580,000 in very old block grant funds the first question was not – how can we get local business to use these loans to create jobs within the rules? Instead, it was – how much can we spend on administration? In other words, how much can government legally spend it on itself – the answer was 18 percent.
California has about 1.8 million public employees; let’s look at San Benito’s public sector employment. The county public school system reported employing between 525 and 560 certified staff consisting of teachers, administrators, and suppliers of pupil services. They also employed 196 full-time and 288 part-time classified staff. If they never spent another dime, they have a direct salary impact on more than 1,000 employees. Annual payroll and benefits could easily exceed $50 million not including employer and public retirement contributions.
The San Benito Health Care District consists of Hazel Hawkins Hospital and related operations providing medical services in the county. In 2010, they had 684 employees and a wage and benefit payroll exceeding $40 million; again, not including employer retirement or statutory contributions.
San Benito County had 478 full-time and part-time employees with a wage and benefit payroll of $28 million not including employer retirement contributions and the City of Hollister had 226 full-time and part-time employees with a wage and benefit payroll of $11.7 million not including employer retirement contributions.
Those four local public agencies alone had 2,388 employees and a combined wage and benefit payroll of $129.7 million. Add another 25 percent for retirement and other miscellaneous benefits and we’re at $162 million or $2,800 for every man, woman, and child in the county. Do you know of any other employer in the county with 2,300 employees and a $162 million annual payroll?
With about 16,800 county households, the odds are you have a friend, acquaintance or relative among those working for, or benefiting from, public agency spending; those agencies are the big dogs here. Our business-to-business tax income, tourist dollars and industrial outputs are small. Agriculture is the largest private enterprise sector with a total annual value of $255 million and we honor it, but it’s a commodity business competing with low-cost imports; it cannot sustain the cost of government.
So we just continue to ignore the problem. Sure, we all want cutbacks – just pay me first and don’t lay off my brother-in-law.
Marty Richman is a Hollister resident. His column appears Tuesdays.
