It is amazing how our Orange County Supervisors find new ways to waste our money. I am excerpting below a press release I received from the Association of O.C. Deputy Sheriffs outlining how our supposedly conservative Supervisors have already rang up almost $2 million in legal fees for a case that didn’t even make it to trial:
The County of Orange’s legal bills for County Supervisor John Moorlach’s failing legal effort to significantly cut deputy sheriff pensions in Orange County have exceeded the $1.7 million mark, county records show. The County’s lawsuit was recently tossed out of court before even going to trial.
Kirkland & Ellis, the fourth outside law firm hired by the County to assist their 2 ½ year effort to declare Deputy Sheriff 3% at 50 pension benefits in Orange County unconstitutional, rang up $383,000 in legal bills during January and February of this year, bringing the County’s total legal costs through February 28 to $1,727,320.57.
“I feel bad for the county taxpayers,” said Wayne Quint, President of the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs. “Three highly paid law firms hired by the county to give them expert outside legal advice, all told the County Board of Supervisors that they had no chance whatsoever to win litigation on this subject. At the insistence of Supervisor John Moorlach and his Chief of Staff Mario Mainero, the board ignored their paid legal advice and proceeded forward anyway with a frivolous lawsuit. Now, over $1.7 million later, the court quickly throws their case out — before it even makes it to trial.”
I have said this before – the previous Supervisors who handed out a huge pension spike to the O.C. Deputies did a stupid thing – but did any of us learn from that? One of them, Jim Silva, ended up getting elected to the State Assembly, with full support from the OC GOP machine! Wasn’t Todd Spitzer in that bunch too? He now works as an assistant O.C. District Attorney! These guys screwed the voters and got a soft landing, courtesy of their party machine.
The O.C. Supervisors screwed up – now they need to deal with that, not by suing but by cutting elsewhere. They should be outsourcing as much as possible. They should be cutting their own personal budgets. I don’t see why the taxpayers should be giving free cars and gas to the Supervisors – they already make huge salaries. And why did they remodel their offices during a supposed budget crunch? What a joke…
O yes,
Waste the tax payer money on getting kick backs with medical,
But don’t over pay the police that protect us!!
I suppose you don’t make money off the police Art “DO YOU”,
Almost two million bucks of the public’s money spent by our elected County Supervisors in an effort to escape a contractual obligation? That obligation is what it is, and while one can lament the decision that created it, that is history. Leaders must lead, and that includes meeting the terms of contracts, not tying to sleeze their way out of it. Whatever happened to planning and budgeting based upon known obligations? And, aren’t there legal costs the county, as the loser in this futile litigation, will have to pay to the Deputy Sheriffs and the retirement system? How much more is that going to cost the taxpayers? Time for a Tea Party directed at the Board of Supervisors?
Read a few weeks ago that State Senator Lou Correa got an exta $30-$50 million per year allocated to OC from the State budget, supposedly an annual boost going forward to help correct the fact that OC has not been getting its proportionate share of the State budget for decades. Why don’t the Sup’s use this new money to pay for their retirement system commitments instead of trying to shirk their contractual responsibilities? We better be on the lookout for more office remodelings,enhanced benefits for the electeds, and/or funding of local pork with this new money arriving. We taxpayers should demand a full accounting each year on how this new money is spent!
“Almost two million bucks of the public’s money spent by our elected County Supervisors in an effort to escape a contractual obligation?”
No. The Supervisor’s position is the retroactive part of the “agreement” was illegal – essentially a gift of public funds. What for? Political payoff, bribe for future support?
Simple enough to partly fix. Apply all future raises for OCSD to their retirement costs. If they get 4% this year, allocate it to that cost to offset the county contribution. Why should the taxpayers pay it. This is exactly what most agencies do with their non-sworn employees. If they want the benefit they can pay for it. Stop the bleeding now.