COSTA MESA, Calif., March 18 (UPI) -- Almost half of Costa Mesa, Calif., city employees receive layoff notices, stunning most workers and apparently leading to one suicide, authorities say.
In an attempt to close a budget gap through severe austerity measures, Costa Mesa officials began circumventing unions and union pension obligations by contracting out the work of many city services, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. A 29-year-old maintenance worker, whose name has not been released, jumped off Costa Mesa City Hall hours after receiving a layoff notice Thursday.
About 213 of the city's 472 full-time employees were pink-slipped for six-months including firefighters, maintenance workers, dogcatchers and jail staff.
Costa Mesa "appears to have gone with the nuclear option," said Joe Nation, a professor of public policy at Stanford University who is studying the issue of underfunded public pensions.
"Cities are being forced to look at things that would've been unthinkable before," Nation said.
"This has been coming on for a long time, and we're coming to a point that's rock bottom," Mayor Gary Monahan told city employees at a meeting.
