Excellent, as it should be. The largesse in public sector employment (particularly benefits) is stunning. Millions of dollars can be weeded out even in small towns/cities. In my town, the public sector health care costs are DOUBLE what they are in the private sector -- incredible. On top of that, in our state, a public sector employee can have a small part time job, say on the county board of elections earning $10k a year. If they hold that position for 30 years they qualify for full PERS -- 80% of their pay based on their 3 highest earning years at retirement. What happens then is during their later years they get appointed to another (real) government job paying, say $60k, and work at it for 3 years. Then when they retire they get 80% of the $60k as opposed to something based on their entire career ---- un-friggin-believeable. And to top it all off, they can retire and be re-hired and DOUBLE DIP .... happens all the time.

And that is why you are starting to see so many business leaders volunteer to help with local government money problems because the elected officials don't have the balls to deal with these egregous pay/benefit issues, especially in states where unions dominate public sector employment.

The situtaion is unsustainable and more cuts will have to be made. Unfortunately the elected officials always first go after cuts that are minor but tend to piss off the citizens as a way to sort of blackmail them into voting for more taxes. That won't work any more, the real cuts in the meat of the budget (wages/benefits) are now going to have to be looked at and dealt with.

I am amazed it took this long.