{"id":140080,"date":"2026-01-19T14:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T14:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/140080\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T14:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T14:16:07","slug":"there-was-no-wage-freeze-in-city-government-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/140080\/","title":{"rendered":"There was no \u2018wage freeze\u2019 in city government \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Re \u201cS.D. pension payment hits record high\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/2026\/01\/10\/san-diegos-pension-jump-could-be-four-times-as-painful-as-previously-thought-as-payment-hits-record\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jan. 10<\/a>): The article again notes city officials\u2019 claims that recent pay hikes were needed to offset a 2013 to 2018 \u201cwage freeze.\u201d Public data show otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>According to California\u2019s official payroll database (publicpay.ca.gov), average city of San Diego wages rose from about $59,900 in 2013 to $67,100 in 2018, a 12% increase, while employer-paid retirement and health contributions more than doubled from roughly $6,300 to $13,500 per employee.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the record, Mayor Todd Gloria invokes a debunked \u201cwage freeze\u201d to rationalize pension-inflating raises while sidestepping responsibility for the budget deficit those decisions helped create. That kind of erratic decision-making is not good governance, and San Diegans deserve better.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jax Johnston, South Park<\/p>\n<p>The record city pension payment due to extra salary increases in addition to automatic pay hikes is the problem \u2014 excess spending due to catering to union demands over the years. The mayor\u2019s and the City Council\u2019s plan to decrease the deficit with the dishonest trash fees and parking meters at Balboa Park and soon at our beaches is another smoke-and-mirrors ploy which will do little to plug the deficit.<\/p>\n<p>The city\u2019s claims of savings it has supposedly made can\u2019t be trusted. Taxpayers are being punished due to city overspending. The tax increases elected leaders are counting on will never happen as we are fed up with their incompetence. The only solution to our budget woes is to lay off workers and to freeze future pay raises.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jack Resnick, La Jolla<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Re \u201cS.D. pension payment hits record high\u201d (Jan. 10): The article again notes city officials\u2019 claims that recent&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1564,975,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-140080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-letters-to-the-editor","tag-opinion","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}