One of the ways California made it through 2009 was by cutting aid to cities, and that has led to severe cutbacks in local spending.
I bumped into a friend of mine who works in the Goleta city hall today. He said that they were suing California to get additional funds. Goleta (the town next to Santa Barbara) actually has a pretty decent tax base. They have a Costco center that provides enough taxes to employ about half of city hall. Goleta incorporated after I moved to Santa Barbara, so I assume that it also has the benefit of not having a lot of legacy costs. Still, it seems a bit spooky that the city has to sue the state to get additional funds. It’s not hard to imagine that other cities are in bad shape.
In other news, California creditors are getting nervous. S&P cut our rating again today (to A-, I believe the outlook was negative). That puts us under Greece. Tick tick tick.
