Thread: California Sheriff Takes Home $640,000 a Year; Triple Dippin

Sunday, February 07, 2010

California Sheriff Takes Home $640,000 a Year; Automatic Muni Raises in SF; Oregon Pension Board Buries Head In Sand

The San Francisco Chronicle has an interest story about Automatic Raises For Muni Drivers. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cit ... z0eRi4XXfl

So much for the idea of saving $8 million by having Muni drivers give up their raises next year. Even if Muni drivers were game, they can't forgo their raise because they are required in the city charter, which guarantees that they are the second-highest paid transit operators in the nation.

With the raise issue off the table, the union is being pushed to consider other concessions, such as allowing Muni to use part-time drivers and ending or reducing premium pay benefits for such things as working at night or training other drivers. Or, Muni operators could start contributing to their retirement account.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd has another option: pass a proposed ballot measure he's pursuing for the June ballot that would remove the formula-based pay provision and make the pay scale for Muni operators subject to collective bargaining. Elsbernd's proposal, vehemently opposed by the transit union and generally given a cool reception from several of his colleagues and the mayor, will be considered by the Rules Committee on Thursday for placement on the ballot.

No matter how poorly they perform, or how broke the city is, San Francisco muni workers have a guaranteed second highest pay schedule in the nation. One would have to be absolutely out of his mind to go along with such nonsense. Yet, the mayor does not want to do a damn thing about it.

Oregon Pension Board Ponders Rate Increases

Oregon's pension plan (like that of nearly every other state) is massively underfunded. But no one wants to increase employer rates to properly fund it.

Inquiring minds are reading Public pension board to vote on employer rate increases. http://www.oregonlive.com/business/inde ... ote_o.html

Under current rate-setting rules, public agencies and the taxpayers that support them face a 170 percent spike in biennial pension contributions starting in 2011 -- a collective $1.5 billion budget hit -- to start digging out of the pension fund's actuarial hole.

The market plunge lopped $17 billion off the value of the Oregon Public Employee Retirement Fund. Despite a strong recovery last year, the $51 billion fund still has a shortfall of approximately $14 billion, with 75 cents in assets for every $1 in liabilities.

The board has been lobbied by public employers and unions to temper any rate increases because of the impact on the already strained budgets of municipalities, school districts and public agencies across the state. The dilemma is whether it can do so without further compromising the funded status of the system or pushing the obligation off on future generations.

PERS-covered employers currently pay an average rate of 12.4 percent of payroll to cover retirement benefits. The system has a contribution rate collar that normally limits rate changes to 3 percent of payroll per biennium. But when individual employer's funded status is less than 80 percent the collar doubles, and their rates jump by 6 percent of payroll costs.

A 6 percentage point increase would leave average employer rates above 18 percent in 2011.

The depressing reality in Mercer's models is how little the increased contributions under either the current or revised policy actually budge the system's funded status. Even if the pension fund's investments earn 8 percent annually for the next decade, the system's funded status only reaches the 80 percent level in 2019. If that's the case, employers will face further rate increases in 2013 and 2015.

"Even if market consistently deliver strong returns, we're moving to a higher level of contributions for the next decade," said PERS board chairman James Dalton, a former Tektronix executive. "It's going to take a long time to recover. It's a different environment."

If, on the other hand, returns are closer to the system's average over the last 10 years -- 4.5 percent -- the actuarial deficit will grow precipitously.

Employers need to pay 18% of salaries to fund pensions

If returns are poor it will quickly be 20%, then 24%. When does someone finally have the guts to tell the union freeloaders to go to hell or to raise rates to what is needed so there is a public outcry. Instead ...

The Oregon Pension Board Eases Rate Hikes. http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/si ... ployer.csp

The board of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System has voted to take some of the edge off a coming increase in employer pension rates.

Rates are rising because of the 2008 stock market downturn. The new policy bases them on a sliding scale tied to how well-funded each employer’s pension fund is.

PERS Executive Director Paul Cleary characterized the move as based more on fairness than to provide rate relief.

Under the old policy, the investment declines most participating pension plans have suffered would have triggered an automatic 6 percent rate increase for employers.

The new policy means that better-funded pension plans within PERS will have smaller rate increases than public employers with plans hit harder by the economic downturn.

Oregon Buries Head In Sand

As expected, the pension board, stuck its collective head in the sand, pretending the problem will go away. It won't.

Double Dipping Sheriffs

Thoroughly disgusted minds are reading about sheriff officials double and triple dipping. http://calcoastnews.com/2010/01/two-top ... e-dipping/

Though highly unusual, the methods San Luis Obispo County’s two top sheriff officials have adopted to double and even triple their incomes are entirely legal.

In an interesting twist, San Luis Obispo County Under Sheriff Steve Bolts is taking home between $640,000 and $772,000 this year in retirement benefits and an hourly salary, while his boss, Sheriff Pat Hedges, takes home $340,000, according to calculations based on dates provided by Bolts.

“I can see people saying this is double or triple dipping,â€

I don't know what muni is, but it looks like he is getting paid too much, considering how many ILLEGAL aliens there are in the U.S.