How Much of Your Tax Money Will GY’s “Retired” Former Fire Chief Get?

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Howard's Goodyear

Editor’s note: Don’t blame the former chief. Kudos to him for playing the system so well. He’s won fair and square. The problem is with the morons (voters) who keep allowing this to happen.

GY’s former fire chief recently, “retired” after, according to the newspaper, a damaging consultant report told the city what a lousy job he’d been doing. The 49 year old, now disgraced, former chief will retire with “full benefits” plus, GY gave him an over $50,000 kiss goodbye.

The nice folks over at Goldwater Institute put me on to a web site that will, within reason, give you a pretty good estimate of what someone’s public pension will be.

So I put in the information I know about GY’s recently “retired” 49 year old former fire chief.

Here is what I know:

  1. According to the newspaper he is retiring with “full benefits” at age 49.
  2. Also according to the paper, in his last year of work he made $153,000. Now I also know that according to Goodyear, there have been precious few salary increases over the past few years. So I used $150,000 to answer the question, “what was your final average salary”?
  3. I assumed he started work at age 16 in order to give 33 years of service and try to get a complete “full retirement” amount.
  4. The web site (here it is) allows you to pick the state, what type of job he had, his age, years of service, etc. It appears to be pretty complete.

So according to the web site, how much are we tax payers going to pay GY’s former fire chief who only worked for 30 some years, to stay at home for the next 30 to 40 years?

$120,000 per year

And, according to the same web site, how much should we expect to pay him from now until he dies?

$2,547,552.00

WOW!

And you’re also going to pay for most of his health care too.

Want to figure out how much of a pension you are going to pay any public servant to sit on their butt for the next several decades?
Like say GY city manager Chairman Brian Dalke with his $186,000 salary?
Or how about the GY administrative assistant (secretary) who is making over $80,000 per year?

Here you go: calculate my pension AZ.

Filed under: 2012-13 Budget, Goodyear Giveaways | 7 Comments »

Property Tax Rates Going Up 7.34% (again) in Goodyear

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Howard's Goodyear

Editor’s note. There are 5,000 plus lemming like voters who live in Goodyear who keep re-electing the same liberal, tax and spend seven dwarf council members to the Goodyear city council along with GEOrgia Lord, the city mayor who does not know what the unemployment rate is in her city. You 5,000 plus lemmings DESERVE these latest property tax rate increases. The rest of the 20,000 plus registered Goodyear voters who did not even bother to return your mail in ballots? You deserve the increased property taxes too.

Did you read your most recent Infocus Magazine, the city of Goodyear’s publicly funded political propaganda newspaper? Don’t you just love how they tell you they’re going to soak you again for more tax revenue while they try to make you feel like you are going to like these increases? Everything is getting better, they say, but the city budget is still, “conservative”. Revenues are projected at $73 million.

But guess what, those $73 million in revenues are projected AFTER they raise your property tax rates over 7%.

Chairman Brian (GY city manager Brian Dalke) says they, “want to be cautious despite growth in revenues”. Yeah, growth in revenues AFTER they raise your property tax rates over 7%.

And look how they try to minimize and marginalize the increase. Only, “61 cents per month on a home valued at $120,000″. When they tried to take credit for job growth, they quoted a “61%” increase. But now they don’t like to use percentages. They don’t want to tell you they’re increasing your rates over 7%. “61 cents per 120,000 in valuation” sounds soooo much easier to take. 61 cents is about 20 times greater than the reduction on a $100 grocery bill as a result of their glamorized food tax change that they swooned over last year. And you get to pay it every month whether you like it or not. And if you happen to own a home in Pebble Creek worth, say, $360,000, you’re going to pay $22 more than you would have in order to allow Chairman Brian to give he and his employees more pay raises and better support their defined benefit retirement plans that just allowed Goodyear’s 49 year old, inept, $150,000 per year plus fire chief to retire with FULL BENEFITS for the rest of his expected 30 to 40 plus year lifetime on your dime.

Think about that for a minute. A 49 year old who was making $150,000 per year when he got booted out for incompetence is going to retire on your dime for the next 30 to 40 years. Even if he started working full time at age 16 to 19, he is going to be collecting FULL BENEFITS based upon his HIGHEST LIFETIME SALARY for many many years longer than he WORKED IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE.

Did you get that? He’s retiring at 49. If he started working at 16 he’s WORKED 33 years. Now, based upon his HIGHEST EVER annual salaries in his entire 33 year career, YOU are going to pay him to stay home for the next 30 to 40 years.

Higher and Higher Spending in Goodyear
You’re reading this blog and you’re surprised at tax rates going up? Are you kidding me? Do you think Goodyear is spending less money through a recession? They have spent more money every year since 2010, and they spent $8 million more in 2009 than they did in 2008. Right through the recession.

Their marketing tag line (they pay a lot of public policy marketers big bucks in Goodyear to figure out how to tell you stuff so you’ll like it) is:

“BUDGET ON TARGET”

But guess what, the TARGET, is YOU. The property tax payer.

Chairman Brian goes on to tell you that because home valuations on the tax roles have still not recovered enough, “to cover … expenses” Goodyear will once again need to increase your property tax rates. “The unfortunate result is the need to adjust the rate to cover the shortfall” says Brian.

Adjust the rate to cover the shortfall? C’mon man! That’s backwards isn’t it? Aren’t you supposed to reduce the spending to cover the shortfall? How about firing a few $100,000 plus marketing employees? How about not overpaying for buildings? How about cancelling Infocus magazine in order to save some money?

The Facts
Here is an article I wrote over a year ago showing you that Goodyear has spent MORE and MORE money each year since 2008 as revenues fell. Spending Article. And how much are they going to spend this year? The simple, one word answer is, “MORE”. Upwards of $73 million of your tax dollars. Compare that to 2010 when they spent $66 million.

You bet they’re on target. The target is your wallet.

Feel like expressing yourself? georgia.lord@goodyearaz.gov

Tomorrow: Just how much of your tax money will the former fire chief get?

Filed under: 2012-13 Budget, Dishonesty in Government | 3 Comments »

GEOrgia, “I’m Extremely Proud”.

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Howard's Goodyear

Editor’s note: One observant reader notes that 2008 was an extremely low employment year to make comparisons to.  What did 2007 look like?  How about a comparison to that?  Want to bet that GY chose its comparison numbers very carefully?

In a glowing AZ Republic article about the “61% growth” in jobs in Goodyear since 2008 due ENTIRELY, of course, to the hard work of Goodyear city hall, GEOrgia was recently quoted by Goodyear city hall propagandist John Yandis* of the AZ Republic saying that she was, “extremely proud” of all that Goodyear had accomplished with all the new business expansions in Goodyear since 2008.

GEOrgia goes further to say, “we have been strategic in our efforts to attract quality business, and it is paying off.”

Really? More hooey from the mayor who does not even know what the unemployment rate is in her city. Haven’t I told you before to BEWARE POLITICIANS QUOTING PERCENTAGES through the media?

The Facts
According to Yantis’ aritcle, Goodyear added 1,841 new jobs since 2008 to a base of 3,040 jobs, for a 4 year growth of a whopping 61%.

Let’s assume those numbers are correct, although Goodyear neglects to mention how they got the numbers, where they got them, if they include businesses that have since closed (Suntech), or if and how many of these jobs are temporary or part time (many of them). So how strategic have GEOrgia and Goodyear been, and how much of your tax money have they spent, “attracting” all these great low paying, and many times part time or temporary jobs?

  1. Since 2008 Goodyear has GIVEN AWAY at least $3.2 million dollars in corporate welfare** to just FIVE businesses, Suntech, ST. Gobain, Dick’s, SAS, and SubZero. And who knows how many countless others? Did you see any of them on the big job creator list? Only one.
  2. Since 2008 Goodyear has spent another $4 plus million dollars funding the city’s Economic Development department including a $450 per second advertising video that became dated less than 6 months after it was produced. But the video did beat out a group of college students from New Mexico to win an “emmy” which also won GY’s now former public info officer a new job working for the state fish and game department.
  3. 600 of the claimed 1,841 new jobs were at Macy’s and CTCA which were expansions of existing businesses. How many more of the remaining 1200 jobs were expansions, you ask? Goodyear neglected to supply that information for Mr. Yantis’ article.

This leaves us with at best about 1200 new jobs in Goodyear while the city spent $7.2 million dollars of your money to get them. And much of the $7.2 million in costs are reoccurring each year.

And do any of these $7.2 million of your tax dollars include the cost of increased public safety to the city to protect new manufacturing sites? No.

Does it pay for their additional and sometimes substantial water and waste water demands? No. And Goodyear is running out of water treatment capacity as we speak.

And what of the damage that businesses’ heavy trucks do to the local roads? No again.

Bottom Line
Businesses are moving to Goodyear for one of the following THREE reasons, NONE of which does the city of Goodyear have ANYTHING to do with;

  1. 303 and I-10 interchange and the still relatively cheap land around it.
  2. Proximity to California but still west of Phoenix traffic.
  3. Beats the heck out of living in Yuma, Tonapah, or Salome. Can you imagine the dinner table discussion with Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh transferees? “Honey, we’re moving to Yuma, AZ. No, I don’t know which deserts it is located between.”

The truth is that GEOrgia Lord and the rest of the seven dwarfs on Goodyear city council have yet to discover a spending/incentive program that they don’t all love. And they all love spending your money.

Tomorrow: The new GY Budget and YOUR 7.34% property tax rate increase in order to support all the new spending.

*Yantis can’t help it. He has deadlines and Goodyear’s Info Office just feeds him stuff to print.
** ST. Gobain details my estimate, $250,000 per year. Suntech $500k. SAS $250k. Subzero $650k. Dick’s $1.5 mil. Emmy Video $80k.

Filed under: Dishonesty in Government, Goodyear Giveaways | 1 Comment »

Sun Tech Files For Bankruptcy

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Howard's Goodyear

How doth I tell you “I told you so”?

Let me count the ways, GEOrgia et al.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324557804578372082733827860-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwMTEyNDEyWj.html?mod=wsj_valettop_email

Filed under: Dishonesty in Government, Goodyear Giveaways, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Stupid is as Stupid Does: Sun Tech Defaults

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Howard's Goodyear

Editor’s Note: Sun Tech isn’t just closing their doors in GY as GEOrgia would have you believe. They are going out of business entirely.
How could your mayor who gave them $500k of you money be so uninformed? You ask that question about the same mayor who does not even know the unemployment rate in her own city?

You just can’t teach smart can you? But then again, 6,000 of you just re-elected her.

Previously I told you that Chinese owned Sun Tech who GEOrgia et al gave over half a million of your tax dollars to had closed its doors in GY. GEOrgia blamed it on nasty tariffs which the US imposed on China for unfair trade practices (a 6-0 vote by the trade commission by the way).

Yep, your mayor (and maybe Barry Broome) may have been the only public figure in America to speak out against these tariffs. How stupid is that?

Well, yesterday Sun Tech defaulted on over half a BILLION dollars in bonds. Think a tariff in the US causes that? Nope, it is just the rationalization of emerging technology businesses like solar panels and Sun Tech is not cutting it in the marketplace.

Told you so again, GY, GEOrgia, council, and Brian Dalke. It is STUPID for government to try to ‘pick winners’ especially in emerging technologies. But do you think that will stop GEOrgia and the rest of the incompetents on GY city council?

As I said before, if elected officials were so good at picking investment winners they would not have to work. They’d be independently wealthy. But they’re playing with YOUR money so what do they care about the risks? They just keep on rolling the dice.

Filed under: Dishonesty in Government, Goodyear Giveaways, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

March 2013 Election Results

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Howard's Goodyear

You got to give them credit.

Wally “the dog ate my homework” Campbell and recently retired city employee Joe Pizzillo won their GY council seats yesterday. About 7,000 voters turned out in a city of 65,000 people with I’m guessing 30 some thousand registered voters, and the two life time government employees convinced about 5,000 of those voters that they would look out for their interests better than anyone else could even though under their watch the city continues to fail, taxpayer dollars are doled out to failing foreign companies, and a fire fighter’s lobbying group loves them.

As an ex-city employee, does anyone really doubt where Joe’s loyalties lie and what his priorities are? And is it not clear to anyone who has attended a council meeting or watched the tapes that lifetime government “staffer” (secretary) Wally “tdamh” Campbell does not even know what she is looking at when it comes to most GY council issues?

But they have 5,000 supporters who vote.

The news was not as good for GEOrgia even though she won. 1 in 7 voters who took the time to vote refused to cast a ballot for GEOrgia even though she was the only one on the ballot.

If I have my facts straight, it appears that Brannon Hampton and Sharolyn Hohman will face a run off in May. Hohman will win handily, in that case since she is GEOrgia and the current council’s handpicked choice and they will get their 5,000 or so lemming like loyal supporters to vote for her.

A shout out, “I told you so” to Brannon. I told you that if you did not make the election about the incumbents’ incompetence you COULD NOT win. You didn’t so far and I say you have no chance now. The local newspapers called this election, “quiet”. You blew it, Brannon. Now you’ve spent all that time and effort and for nothing. Believe me yet?
Prediction
New council will vote itself a pay raise at the insistence (based upon studies, of course) of the city manager.

Filed under: 2013 Election | 4 Comments »

Suntech Closing

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Howard's Goodyear

Editor’s Note. These articles are getting easier and easier to write.  All I have to do is when one of my predictions comes true to tell you all “I told you so” and reprint my previous article where, “I told you so”. If their bumbling wasn’t so expensive it would be comical.

I’ll bet you won’t see a big news release* from GEOrgia, GY city council and their $80,000 assistants on this one will you?
Suntech Closing its Doors

Nope, and you won’t see any announcements from GEOrgia and the rest of the gang on Goodyear Stadium’s 20% plus LOWER attendance so far this year will you?

But GEOrgia is still optimistic, isn’t she?  It’s easy to be optimistic when you’re playing with other people’s money and all you care about is being in the middle of stuff you don’t understand that makes you feel like a big shot.

But don’t worry, as GEOrgia told us all (again) in her latest political magazine, (GY InFocus, which YOU pay for).  The Mall is coming.

Don’t worry, the Mall is coming….

Here is what I told you a long, long, time ago about Suntech, Solar, and government know-nothings trying to pick winners.
GEOrgia’s Solyndra
GEOrgia’s Solyndra Part Two
Incompetents Picking Winners w/ Your Money

*Thanks to a faithful reader for sending this article to me.

Filed under: Dishonesty in Government | 1 Comment »

Next Page »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

%d bloggers like this: