The emerging trend on bankrupting cities is the profligate spending on non-essential services. Yesterday, San Bernadino, Calif. started going down that path. Here’s a public comment from that story in the LA Times:
Kathy Mallon, 57, who has lived in San Bernardino for a decade, blasted the city’s elected leaders for allowing the financial crisis to grow unabated and wasting millions of tax dollars on transit projects and other non-essential services.
Stockton and Mammoth Lakes have also filed bankruptcy in recent weeks.
Scranton, Pa. is also in a heap of trouble and the employees have been reduced to minimum wage according to Fiscal Times:
The city’s mayor, Chris Doherty, a Democrat, has slashed wages for nearly 400 public employees to $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage, because there’s not enough money in city coffers to pay those workers their usual salaries. The city is some $16.8 million in the hole based on its current fiscal year budget.
Hey, but Stockton can at least say they have a taxpayer funded hockey arena. . maybe Wilmington will soon be able to say they have a baseball stadium when they head in the same direction!
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