Shari Friedrich, OC Treasurer

OC County Treasurer Shari Friedrich is responsible for a $6.5 billion investment pool for Orange County. The good news, she keeps our money safe guarded and is responsible for investment of public funds and collecting taxes. She sits on OC Pension board and is a member of the public finance committee. Her responsibilities also include banker for school district funds (writing checks for payroll) and some OC districts also use her funds as a safe investment vehicle for their district's money. Her goal is safekeeping by providing safety, liquidity and yield (no risk). She has an unblemished record of safety, never having lost one dollar of tax payer monies.

Shari oversees a staff of 97 and a budget of $18 million. She's made changes to continue safety including reviewing exposure to risk, hiring a dedicated analyst for reviews investment instruments daily; she's redesigned reporting structures; streamlined investment operations; reduced administrative costs over 10%. Unfortunately our yields are at rock bottom. She conducts an annual treasurer's conference, is reaching out to each OC city to assist them with their investments through a monthly conference call. She has brought best business practices to the treasury. Her staff is responsible for collecting on behalf of 200 agencies; $4.7 billion in collections (a 97% rate); and 54% OC taxes have been collected before the end of the calendar year. 40% goes back to schools; 19% to each city and 34% to the state.

For us taxpayers, although she does not set tax values, she is working to make it easier to pay our taxes through online services. She's brought cost-effective practices to government,including restructuring her office. Including a better customer service office.

Irvine is the sixth largest economy in the US with 3.1 million people, we are doing better than state in revenues. Taxes collecitng rates are up for Irvine, 1.45% in 2011; .87% for California.

John Moorlach: OC - A Model During A Period of Municipal Meltdown

John W. Moorlach, Vice Chairman, Orange County Board of Supervisors, Second District predicted the biggest municipal disaster when OC defaulted on its debt. He talked about what elected officials in California and around the country are facing. The global reality is they are all mired in debt for municipal debt, deferred maintenance, pension funds and more. Although employees are paying more into their pensions, there's no raises and new tiers for retirement (including the ability for a municipal employee to opt out of the retirement plans), we are still mired in debt for the default 20 years ago.

OC reforms helped the county reduce unfunded liabilities, but all of CA is looking at OC to see how they handle the future. The majority of our general purpose revenue, $653 million, 87% of the county revenue comes from property taxes. 2011 was a balanced budget, every year we are laying off more and more municipal employees. But we inherited a retroactive salary benefit, worth $1.5 billion. In a bull cycle we enjoyed amazing growth, but there's a train wreck in slow motion about to hit OC.

OC Pension plans are doing fairly well, investments are bouncing back, but pension costs continue to rise, revenues are flat, and employees on pensions are living alot longer than predicted. The pension burden is $.31.5 per $1 in pension contributions. Irvine's unfunded liabilities alone are $1,823 per capita. We are running on fumes. If we don't see an uptick in the economy we'll run out of cash

What should CA do? Downsize, ratchet back regulations, roll back pension formulas, create hybrid pension formulas, freeze pension plans, privatize, merge and consolidate management, address the underground economy, report all debts, create a moratorium on bond debt and do something with public pensions.

There's a net migration out of CA. Watch what will be happening in other municipalities!

Two new members join Irvine Rotary

From left: Membership Chair Rick Topping, Alex Ureche, Bruce Lazenby, Club President Mark Brubaker.