Gavin Newsom, our designated next governor, will make it worse

Dan Walters: Municipal finance analysts see Richmond, an industrial city on San Francisco Bay, as the state’s most likely candidate for insolvency, largely due to sharp increases in pension fund contributions to cover its police and fire personnel.Richmond is spending nearly $50 million a year now for its pension and retiree obligations, 50 percent more than what it was spending six years ago, and anticipates another 50 percent increase in the next half-decade.“It’s a huge mess,” Richmond Mayor Tom Butt told CALmatters, a nonprofit news organization. “I don’t know how it’s going to get resolved. One of these days, it’s just going to come crashing down.”Richmond, like most cities, ramped up its pension benefits after the state Legislature and then-Gov. Gray Davis did it for state workers in 1999 on assurances from CalPERS that its investment earnings, rather than taxpayers, would cover the added costs.

The dem plan is to elect  Newsom and declare bankruptcy 

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/dan-walters/article134832779.html#storylink=cpy