Consultants to collect $6 million, want $10 million more

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published January 15, 2006 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

San Diego City Council meets for the first time this year on Tuesday, Jan. 17. The thorny issue on the agenda is whether to authorize millions more to pay consultants who are investigating the city. K

The San Diego City Council meets for the first time this year on Tuesday, Jan. 17.
The thorny issue on the agenda is whether to authorize millions more to pay consultants who are investigating the city. KPBS reporter Alison St. John has more.

It's not an easy way to start the year's city council business - picking up on a decision that was so controversial it was postponed twice last year. The City's consultants, Kroll Inc., are engaged in a massive investigation that involves retrieving millions of e-mails and documents. They are exploring the 2002 decisions that resulted in the City's billion-dollar pension deficit that was hidden from investors.

Kroll and their attorneys have already charged the city more than $6 million for the investigation and have indicated they need about another $10 million to finish the job.

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Some say the conclusions are key to reaching a settlement with the Securities and Exchange commission. But the work has slowed since the council balked at authorizing extending the contract. Kroll says it cannot work indefinitely without being paid, so the city will once again be forced to consider the astronomical bill. Alison St. John KPBS

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.