Debt increases for San Diego City

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published March 13, 2006 at 9:00 PM PST

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

Just when it looked like things couldn't get much worst for the city of San Diego, a new report is out that reveals another billion dollars of debt. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The city will owe an estimated $978 million to pay medical benefits for current and retired city employees. According to a report by the actuarial firm of Towers Perrin, that debt will grow to one point nine billion over the next nine years.

Mayor Jerry Sanders says it's bad news for the city, but he says San Diego has to get the real figures before he can devise a plan to deal with the financial mess.

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Sanders: "What we've been trying to do since day one is get an accurate reflection of what this city is facing moving forward, we need to solve the problems and you can only do that with accurate information."

The Mayor's budget will include $21 million to pay the immediate medical costs. The practice of paying the Medical benefits out of the pension fund stopped last year to prevent the pension fund's billion dollar deficit from increasing any faster. Alison St John KPBS news.

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.