What happens when a city government just can't afford anymore?


Scranton, Pa., slashes workers' pay to minimum wage


Unions representing civil servants in Scranton, Pa., filed suit Tuesday after the mayor cut pay for police, firefighters, garbage collectors and other public workers to minimum wage, saying that was all the city could afford.

Unions representing police, fire and public workers in the city of 76,000 filed three lawsuits after the city defied a judge's order and issued paychecks Friday that paid 398 city employees at the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, according to the Scranton Times-Tribune.

The lawsuits against Mayor Chris Doherty include one filed in federal court under the Fair Labor Standards Act accusing the city of failing to pay wages on time and failing to pay overtime. Another lawsuit seeks to hold the mayor in contempt for violating a judges order. Yet another alleges that benefits for disabled police and firefighters were cut without a hearing.

The Times-Tribune, quoting City Business Manager Ryan McGowan, reported that as of Monday the city had $133,000 in cash, but owed $3.4 million in vendor bills. One of those bills was health insurance, McGowan said.

Scranton is among a number of cities struggling to pay their bills amid rising labor costs. Earlier this month, Stockton, Calif., became the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy protection from creditors.

Scranton's mayor and the city council have been locked in a dispute over how to raise money in a city that has steadily lost population over the past 50 years and has been hit hard by the real estate slump and the Great Recession that followed. Doherty has argued that the city needs to increase taxes, but council members want to find other ways to raise money. Doherty is a Democrat. The city council is comprised of Democrats.

The Scranton newspaper said the city has been designated as financially distressed for 20 years.

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/10/12659748-scranton-pa-slashes-workers-pay-to-minimum-wage?lite

This may be coming to all cities after this Kenyan gets four more years and that figures. [grin] The Great depression was his goal to begin with in my opinion.
hop

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) - As recently as last month, no city in California had opted for bankruptcy since 2008, and no U.S. city of more than 200,000 people had ever chosen bankruptcy.

The past two weeks have changed all that, in a big way, as the fiscal struggles faced by so many American cities became too much for some to bear.

San Bernardino became the third California city in that small span to choose Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection with a City Council vote on Tuesday night.

The Southern California city of about 210,000 people will also become the second largest in the nation ever to file for bankruptcy. Stockton, the Northern California city of nearly 300,000, became the biggest when it filed for Chapter 9 on June 28. The much smaller city of Mammoth Lakes voted for bankruptcy July 3.

San Bernardino's City Council directed the city attorney to make the move during a meeting where administrators explained the dire fiscal circumstances and urged them to choose the bankruptcy option.

"We have an immediate cash flow issue," Interim City Manager Andrea Miller told Mayor Patrick Morris and the seven-member City Council, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Arnie boy was just having a good ol' time while his state was going down the tubes in the past years. Something like that doesn't happen overnight.

One of the cities was in Pennsylvania which you posted. It will be coming to a city near me and you if obama gets four more years. [grin]
hop

...is responsible for ANY city.


L.I.A.R.S. - Lying Is A Republican Solution