San Bernardino firefighters request plan deadline, financial expert

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, Aug. 13 – The City of San Bernardino, Calif.’s firefighters’ union asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California to set a January deadline for the city to file its plan of adjustment, according to a status report filed with the court on Wednesday.

“This case has been sitting idle for months and there will be no prejudice to the city if a filing deadline is set by the court,” the San Bernardino City Professional Firefighters Local 891 said in the report.

“During the past two years, the city has taken advantage, sometimes unlawfully, of a wide-variety of perceived benefits derived from its bankruptcy filing. During this same time, the city has been free of most of the cumbersome responsibilities required of a reorganizing bankrupt entity surrendering to the jurisdiction of a bankruptcy court.

“Even so, the city has made little progress towards the filing of a plan of adjustment. In fact, it appears that the city is comfortable with all the delays occurring in this case.”

According to the status report, San Bernardino has unilaterally implemented measures that significantly reduce the ongoing costs for its safety departments, stopped payments to major creditors, reneged on settlement agreements, postponed all litigation and implemented costs reductions through a “pendency plan.”

However, the union said the city still claimed as of June 24 that “the circumstances underlying the city’s fiscal emergency and reasons for the filing the petition have continued and are expected to continue through at least June 30, 2015.”

To date, the union said San Bernardino has only provided a term sheet for its plan of adjustment when forced to by the court and likely would not have done so without the court order.

In addition, the union asked the court to appoint an independent expert witness on the city’s finances. The union said it is very likely that information shared with the court by the city’s financial expert “has been filtered and is not free of bias.”

A status conference is scheduled for Aug. 14.

San Bernardino filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 1, 2012. The Chapter 9 case number is 12-28006.

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