The Grand Jury of San Diego issued a report of this title yesterday.  Also, at yesterday’s GFOA (Government Finance Officers Association) business meeting, the group voted  that the Government Accounting Standards Board should stay away from the topic of sustainability.  The only conclusion one can draw from the Grand Jury report is: the city of [...]

California, Chapter 9, fiscal emergency, municipal bankruptcy, municipal bond default, state and local politics

The Illinois Comptroller’s April report  is scary reading.  The state is $4.5 billion in arrears on payments to vendors and others (like school districts and service providers) with no end in sight.  The Comptroller expects 2011 to be worse.  The following chart from the report looks to me like a deteriorating structural imbalance moving towards a delicate liquidity [...]

fiscal emergency, fiscal stress, state and local politics, states

See highlighted article about the struggle among a group promoting an initiative to curb costs: covering pensions for new employees’, raising the new employee retirement age and capping the pension formula. The initiative also would prevent the city council from passing retroactive increases (which is what Detroit did in the middle of its fiscal mess).  Looks [...]

ballot initiatives, direct democracy