Port St. Lucie Budget Follies Ring a Bell (Calif.)

Port St. Lucie residents are restless and the city's police officers are calling their union reps over a City Hall that appears to be reeling out of control.

Officials in the city -- once one of the country's fastest-growing cities; now suffering among nation's highest levels of foreclosures and unemployment -- gave initial approval this week to a 17 percent increase in the property tax rate.

While hundreds of taxpayers protest that move, the police chief is proposing to lay off 24 more officers next month.

Even as residents and police protest (the cops have erected a billboard decrying the cuts), they note, with bitter irony, that an assistant city manager received a $16,536 pay raise last April.

Such feather-bedding echoes the plight of Bell, Calif., where city officials were paying themselves six-figure salaries and bonuses while slashing services in the blue-collar town.

The overweening sense of official entitlement in Bell has yielded misconduct charges and a broader state investigation.

As Port St. Lucie continues on course, it provides more proof that California is where the future happens first.