This is just the beginning. Mountain View and almost all California government entities have a huge, unfunded, unsustainable and open ended retiree pension and medical insurance liability. And don't give me any baloney about government employees accepting lower wages for their rich benefits. Look at those wages. "Two unfilled senior planner positions will be cut, saving $270,000 a year." TWO positions! So each costs the city $135,000 and this does not include the amount needed to be set aside for the retirement benefits. I wish I could earn that in my private sector job. Read the news reports about the thousands of CA government retirees receiving more then $100K in retirement PLUS full medical benefits.

Now the teachers' union and Arnold are about to spend more than $15 million to get us to vote for the Propositions in the May 19 election so we can continue to tax ourselves to pay them.

Let's face it. We are the serfs and the public employees and their unions run this state for their benefit.

The price you are quoting is the price it cost the city before that employee's taxes are taken out. That employee is taking home about $100k where he or she should go to the private sector and do the same job for $140K take home.

I am glad that the media can not walk into my employer's payroll department at Apple and ask for our pay so it could publish them (of course I am curious what my supervisor makes). I think the posting of peoples names along with their salaries is just bad taste in the ethics of journalism (I hope the Daily Post guys read that - but who cares...they are a bunch of college interns that haven't even seen the real world yet).

Curious,

May be time to pack up and leave california. You are correct. the current process is not sustainable and politicians just engage in delay tactics hoping the bubble wont burst until they leave office. As to salaries, you need to compare apples to apples. Not all public salaries pay well but some pay more than the private sector and also include benefits that can average over 40%.