Do the math

Dear Editor,

Vote No on Measure E — we are drowning in debt.

Our government is in a financial crisis starting at the federal level all the way down to the city of Pleasanton and our school district. We are overspending. A $98 tax for four years will not solve the problem but just exacerbate it. When the school district started retiring personnel at up to $172,000 a year, that did it for me. They are spiking their salaries. Spiking means adding to your last year’s salary in order to get a higher pension.

We currently have 48 retirees from the Pleasanton Unified School District and the city of Pleasanton with retirement pay over $100,000/year along with free health insurance. I wonder how many residents of Pleasanton, besides public employees, have retirement pay this high?

Thanks to the recent filing of a Public Records Request from our School District, we shall soon learn how deep this spiking goes. School boards let this happen saying it isn’t coming out of our General Fund. No, it’s coming out
of taxpayers’ wallets and is underfunded $56 billion. That will
boost the payment from California’s already strained general fund
by 20%.

I am voting No on E and any other tax measure with the hope that elected officials will start doing basic math.

Please join me on voting No on Measure E.

Kay Ayala, former Pleasanton

Council Member