GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

Senator Bill Morrow

Office (760) 434-7930

HOW GOVERNMENT SPENDS YOUR MONEY

For those interested in how state and local government’s spend your money, I highly recommend the Center for Government’s Web site at http://www.govanalyst.com. In light of this recent news about government pensions, I believe that these analyses will shed some much-needed light on how California’s counties spend your money on personnel.

In summary, the report found that the total payroll for county government employees grew by 48% between 1997 and 2002. In 1997, Californians paid $381.65 per capita for county government, but just five years later were paying $523.15. Most of that expansion occurred in the welfare system, with payroll there rising 72%. This happened during the same period when the number of welfare recipients declined by 2.48 million.

Judicial and legal payrolls have also expanded greatly, 68% in the time of this study. Health system payrolls were up 67%. Financial administration payroll went up 45% and general government administration went up 41%. So what area of county government payroll did not grow as much? Law enforcement was up only 32%. Yet, if you ask most voters what the primary function of government is and what they are most eager to see their taxes go for, the answer is public safety.

Jon Coupal, president of the California Taxpayers Association, which commissioned the study, called voters to action after seeing the report. He said, “It is no longer sufficient for taxpayer groups to just sit and bang on the table and say, ‘No new taxes.’ Now we have to come out and say ‘No new taxes because you are not spending the money you have wisely. ’”