Perfect storm clobbers California cities

California’s nearly 500 cities had been hurting financially even before the COVID-19 pandemic clobbered the state’s economy and triggered a downward spiral of tax revenues.
Although their revenues had climbed sharply during the previous decade, cities had seen even sharper increases in spending for employee pensions and health care and an epidemic of homelessness.
With a pandemic-induced recession, California’s city officials are now hastily revising their budgets for the curre