Luxurious City Pensions

Dec 31, 2010 by Dick.Thomson

Want $186,000 per year ($15,500 per month) for the rest of your life – risk free – inflation adjusted – 100-percent guaranteed?  It gets better:  you don’t have to work.  That’s your retirement.  Pretty good deal?
What about having to PAY someone $186,000 per year for the rest of his or her life – inflation adjusted – 100-percent guaranteed?  Pretty bad deal?
If you didn’t already know it, YOU, the residents of the city of Ventura, ARE paying a 59-year-old retired city employee $186,000 per year for the rest of his life.  That recipient is now running for the city council.
In fact, whether you know it or not, you, the residents of the city of Ventura, are paying over $100,000 per year to no less than 15 retired city workers, every year, for the rest of their lives.  Combined, these 15 former city employees were paid $1,824,041.64 last year (californiapensionreform.com/calpers).
Understand that this is in no way a criticism of the recipients personally, or their loyal and valiant service to the city.  Nor is this any attempt to change the very good deals they struck with the Ventura city council.  Those deals are history.  The retirees will receive their retirement as long as they live, inflation adjusted, 100-percent guaranteed, in good times and bad.  However, it should cause us all to ask the following questions: (1) Can we really afford to grant such deals in the future; and (2) Is it fair to ask you, the residents, to pay increased sales taxes to pay for such benefits?  Quite simply, in the opinion of the Ventura County Taxpayers Association, the answers are NO and NO.
You, the residents of the city of Ventura, simply cannot afford it.  As recent as last year, the city had committed to pay more than $43,000,000 for existing safety employees’ retirement alone.  Retirement costs have risen to 29 percent of active safety payroll.  Almost one-third of the payroll is paid to people no longer working.  Demographics and recent massive increases approved by the city council (Andrews, Moorehouse, and Weir excepted) will cause the cost to only increase drastically in the next few years.  More safety employees are receiving pensions than are working!    This is not sustainable.
Measure A is on the city of Ventura ballot this November.  It involves a proposed tax increase that will shift these spiraling retirement costs to the taxpayers.  The Ventura County Taxpayers Association questions why the citizens – many of whom feel the full force of the economic downturn – should be punished for the bad decisions of the city council.
Although the full details of the pension fiasco are yet to be revealed, the Ventura County Taxpayers Association has made a formal records request to the city of Ventura.  We will follow up with analysis to determine the full extent of the problem.  We will also research reports of “spiking”, which some public employees reportedly use to inflate their annual retirement payment by stockpiling and then cashing in unused vacation, uniform allowances, sick leave, etc.   This causes a spike in their compensation at the end of their careers, which pumps up their retirement payments.  More than 50 percent of all safety pension recipients also have claimed disability.  Payments for disability are not taxable, which raises the prospect that some retirees are further padding their payments by shielding them from federal and state income taxes.
We will then bring these facts to the full light of the taxpaying citizens and offer practical solutions that allow us to retain the great talent we have, particularly the rank and file, without breaking the bank or irresponsibly raising taxes.
The Ventura County Taxpayers Association wants to impress upon the voters that these decisions made by the city council impose added costs to the city every year going forward.  Those council members who continue to support this luxurious pension program and tax increases should feel the wrath of the voters in November.

Ventura County Taxpayers Association

Editorial: Ventura pensions
- by David P. Grau
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/aug/06/ventura-pensions/