Overlooked in the Pacific Grove government employee pension reform discussions is that employees and retirees are real people. In Rhode Island, many retirees who had been promised a modest $25,000-per-year retirement had that sum reduced to $10,000 per year. Their plight is tragic. The discussions in Pacific Grove lump employees and retirees together. The clerk...
The Los Angeles 2020 Commission studied among other things the sorry state of LA’s pension mess. In a case of can-kicking extraordinaire, its recommendation was to appoint another commission to further study the problem. Please consider Report Finds Los Angeles at Risk of Decline A scathing verdict on Los Angeles’s civic health that was delivered in a one-two...
“The AFT will be looking more closely at those who are supporting the dismantling of defined benefit plans at the state and municipal level.” – Ranking Asset Managers, A Retirement Security Report on Money Managers for Pension Fund Trustees, March 5, 2014 As reported in a Washington Examiner editorial on April 4th, the American Federation...
A proposal supported by some members of the Los Angeles City Council begs the question: Just what do we pay taxes for? Los Angeles City Officials want to increase sales taxes for which, in return, they will repair the streets. Councilmembers Mitch Englander and Joe Buscaino are promoting the plan, while Councilman Herb Wesson was...
A “goon-squad” group named The Helpful Union Guys (THUG), members of Ironworkers Local 401 set fires, started riots, and took crowbars to the competition in an effort to protect union jobs. THUGs stalked women, took baseball bats to a Toys R Us site, and even torched a Quaker meetinghouse that dared to use non-union labor. Philly.Com reports 10...
“I think expanding Social Security benefits is incredibly important… the current Social Security benefits are not covering the cost of living for seniors.” – Shenna Bellows, Democrat, candidate for U.S. Senate, Maine, as quoted in Fiscal Times article “Liberal Dems’ New Goal: Boost Social Security Benefits,” The debate over what role, if any, government should...
Where in the United States can you get a government-mandated 35-hour workweek, like the French national government adopted in 2000 (but modified in 2008)? Go to San Francisco and become a construction worker in the following trades on public works projects: Electrician: Inside Wireman Electrician: Cable Splicer Plumber: Air Conditioning & Refrigeration/HVAC – Service Work...
On May 6, 2008, the Vallejo City Council voted 7-0 to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. At the time it was the largest city in California to do so. In March of 2009 I noted Judge Rules Vallejo Can Void Union Contracts. Vallejo foolishly refused to do so, and I predicted it would soon be back...
I just read a recent commentary that described the following as the best definition of the California Rule that the writer had ever seen: “By entering public service an employee obtains a vested contractual right to earn a pension on terms substantially equivalent to those then offered to the employee.” In other words, one has...
When Vallejo, California was facing bankruptcy, pension reformers warned officials there that unless the city takes the opportunity to trim back pensions for current employees that it would soon be back in the fiscal tank. One official there said the city didn’t want to take on the politically powerful California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS),...
When discussing the sensitive subject of public employee compensation, there are several important dimensions that must be considered – can we afford it, is it appropriate and fair, how does it compare to the private sector (if comparisons can even be made), what are the additional costs for employer paid benefits, and how do we...
One of the more alarming data points I have come across while compiling the necessary records for the TransparentCalifornia website has been the large sums of money spent on health insurance for public employees. As our site does not provide individual breakdowns of benefits in an effort to present the information in a uniform and...
“Pew’s relationship with the Arnold Foundation does not pass the smell test,” said Meredith Williams, Denver-based executive director of the National Council on Teacher Retirement. – “Pension Funds Press Pew to Cut Arnold Foundation,” Philanthropy Today, March 4, 2014 If you’re looking for an example of how, increasingly, political debate in America is framed as...
San Jose is only 117 miles from Sacramento, yet the ongoing plight of this beacon of Silicon Valley falls on deaf ears at the state Capitol. The city’s Democratic mayor certainly isn’t getting any aid from legislators. Fortunately, a recent article in the Washington Post shows that the message might be getting out any way. “Here in...