Regarding Houston's unfunded pension liabililties

Here's an item we will cover when we discuss cities and the unique issues they face in due time. Rather than increase salaries for city employees, cities offered generous pension packages. Maybe too generous.

Here's a look at the problems this poses for city finances.

- City upside down: How Houston lost control of its wallet.

This article contains a slide show which makes the point that city revenues are growing at a slower rate than expenditures, and that pension liabilities are driving this disparity. I thought this paragraph was worth highlighting since it discusses the unique role cities play in the federal governing system:

“Cities create the platform for the stage upon which all business is done,” said Jim Noteware, a Houston-based real estate developer and former director of Houston’s Department of Housing and Community Development. “Cities create the roads, sewers and waterlines, but they also create human infrastructure, and all of those in Houston — like across many cities in the country — are breaking down.

Cities also employ more people than other levels of government, so issues associated with pay and benefits loom larger than they do elsewhere. For more on Houston's pension issues - which are common to many other cities, especially large ones - click on the following report: Swamped: How Pension DebtIs Sinking the Bayou City.

I'm considering devoting an entire class soon to evaluating the report.

See also: Promises Made, Promises Broken 2014: Unfunded Liabilities Hit $4.7 Trillion.

A State Manager Takes Over and Cuts What a City Can’t

Michigan takes over one of its cities:

Every first and third Monday of the month for as long as anyone can remember, this city’s elected commissioners have gathered in their musty second-floor chambers to contend with issues large and small — reports of gaping potholes, proposals to sell city land, an annual budget plan.

But as of this month, they are literally powerless, and hold no authority to make any decisions. Not even on potholes.

The city is now run by Joseph L. Harris, an accountant and auditor from miles away, one of a small cadre of “emergency managers” dispatched like firefighters by the state to put out financial blazes in Michigan’s most troubled cities.

Street Level Politics: Stone v. Spitzer

Here are a couple of juicy posts detailing political operative Roger Stone's successful effort to take down ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

On Politics

What matters more when it comes to politics? Reasoned debate -- as I've suggested in class -- or combat?

From Slate:

The Washington Post has a long front-page account of Barack Obama's days in the Illinois state Senate where, the paper says, he was converted from an idealistic do-gooder into a tough politician. "Barack had this misconception that you could change votes with thoughtful questions and good debate," one of his former colleagues told the paper. "That was a little idealistic, if you ask me. It's not necessarily about smarts and logic down there. Votes are made with a lot of horse trading, compromise, coercion, working with the other side. Those are things that Barack can do—can do very well, actually. But it took him a little while to figure it out."

When a Lease is not a Lease

its a service agreement.

Who cares? The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation and the city of Houston.

If a lease is a lease, the center has to vacate property rented to it by the city for 99 years in the early 1960s. If its a service agreement, they dont.

We'll get into the politics of this later. Use this Chron blog entry as a starting point to catch up on the story.

Its a classic big v little guy match up.