Let this sink in for a second. Corona is #1 in General Fund Revenue spent per capita among this set of incorporated cities in Riverside County.

Corona is also in serious debt, which we will outline soon as well.

Corona is a city of 160,000 people. It’s City Manager, the Dr. of Destruction Jacob Ellis is hauling down $460,000 in total compensation. He is literally the poster child for the grotesque excess in the City of Corona’s budget. That’s right, Corona, each of you are worth $3 a year in compensation to your City Emperor.

Many recall when Moreno Valley came perilously close to having to file for a chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy. It is not hard to find articles and blog posts from the last 30 years about Moreno Valley. Perhaps they have learned their lesson as they check in last at $736 per capita in general fund spending.

Corona spends 89% more per capita than Moreno Valley! Even dark-blue Riverside, not known as a bastion of fiscal conservatism is 23% less than the City of Corona! But Corona has Less Masculine Lettering and Coloring now.

AND – the current Corona budget is a 16.9% increase from the prior fiscal year!!!

There is no way this is sustainable. What is the erstwhile Financial Guru Chad Willardson doing? Or is he out of the office so much he is not watching what his crew are concocting?

A simple internet search using one of those Ad-Riddled Salary Websites shows that Corona is about $19K a year higher than surrounding jurisdictions on per-employee costs.

Maybe this is why the City of Corona had to buy a $277 Million Pension Obligation bond a few years ago? They literally borrowed money to support the unsustainable salaries! What are they going to do in a few years when the unfunded liabilities catch up again?

Then, look at this. 10.4% of the general fund is going to debt service. Given that 83-84% of the general fund of Corona is encumbered by State and Federal mandates – this leaves not much more than 6-7% of the city general fund for other stuff.

As another subset of how everything is more expensive in Corona – their Homeless Industrial Complex Budget has ballooned from $1MM a year to nearly $6MM a year.

Among other things, the City has contracted out to an NGO that gets a ton of government contracts. While this looks good on paper, as this group lacks law enforcement power, they are ineffective at their mission and an unfortunate byproduct of homelessness is that they tend to gravitate to where the services are. Corona has budgeted $5.8MM towards the Homeless Industrial Complex as part of the massive 16.9% budget hike and here is what we have to show for the efforts so far:

Budget quadrupled, problem doubled. What a great ROI!

This is their own slide that shows the brutal reality. Since the Willardson/Ellis axis has taken over Corona, they’ve made a massive increase in Homeless spending and have seen homelessness actually increase. The Doctors of Destruction.

What’s sad is at this rate, their new taj mahal $100 Million Park could likely get overrun with homeless camps at the rate this is going!

Allow me to offer some unsolicited advice, as a man who is 23 Years sober. You don’t enable someone living in an addiction, you allow them to fall completely or let them move somewhere else so they can drink and use. Handing out free stuff is actually torturing them to death because the longer an addict is able to avoid the consequences of their actions – the longer they will drink and use for. It’s a proven fact. (Note: 90+% of people that are homeless are due to or mostly due to an addiction) The only things I have ever seen work with any limited success are sober mandated shelters with strict accountability. Given the pattern of management in Corona I am certain they are giving people clean needles and coddling them leading to more relocations to Corona.

But hey! They got a nice new logo!

P.S what happened to the windfall of moolah from Measure X? Remember that sales tax increase that passed a few years ago? You’d think the budget of Corona, including the pile of debt would have been addressed somewhat with all that new money? Nope, coming soon as we continue making the case for firing everyone in a position of responsibility in Corona.

Just remember who is in charge here…