More S.F. retirees join $100,000 city pension club, some getting more than their working salary

[Liberal_in_LA]

More S.F. retirees join $100,000 pension club

Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross

Sunday, July 19, 2009

The number of San Francisco retirees or their survivors knocking back $100,000 or more a year in city pensions has grown to 709.
That's 229 more than last year. It's also 124 more than for all of Los Angeles - a city with more than four times San Francisco's population - according to figures freshly provided to the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, a pension reform group.

Those in San Francisco who have earned a ride on the golden highway include six former police chiefs, four former fire chiefs or their widows and a slew of former department heads.

The highest pension - $242,000 - goes to former Police Chief Earl Sanders. He got a $20,000 bump this year, thanks to a cost-of-living increase.

As with last year's list, the bulk of those making more than $100,000 appear to be either retired police or firefighters.

San Francisco Retirement Board head Clare Murphy gave two reasons for the jump: a surge in employees who became eligible for retirement this year, and cost-of-living increases that bumped earlier pensioners over the $100,000 mark.

"Are we going to keep growing at this rate? Probably not," Murphy said.

A new civil grand jury report on pension costs said there was a widespread practice of "spiking" in the police and fire departments - the practice of members getting temporarily promoted in their final year on the job to bump up their retirement benefits.

The report also said that more than half of the police and firefighters who have retired since 1998 are getting paid more in retirement than when they worked.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/19/BACH18R5IO.DTL#ixzz0LkbY003n

[Hello_Kitty]

1. I agree those are some outrageous pensions

But I don't think it's necessarily wrong to get more in retirement than you did when you were working. Are they factoring inflation?

[rfranklin]

2. The point is that it is based on gaming the system...

I've seen it here in NJ. Where a loyal party hack is given a high paying county job for a year or two before retirement to jack up the pension benefits. Or a cop who has never shown much ambition is suddenly promoted a year before retirement. It should be an averaging of pay for ten or fifteen years before retirement. And no overtime factored in.

[dysfunctional press]

3. 'double-dipping' should also be prohibited...

sometimes people will retie from one position, start earning a pension- and then take another position and 'earn' a second pension.

there are all sorts of creative games that can be played at the public trough.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

4. Our pension is based on the average of your 2 highest years salaries.

It is not unusual though to get promoted to your highest pay level when you have been on the job that long. Many people do a couple of years at those pay levels then retire. Of course $100 k is 2 1/2 times my pay rate and I'm a Fire Captain.

[anigbrowl]

5. This seems to be relatively common in the Bay Area

I live here in SF and the report is quite credible (as are the reporters). I have a friend in Vallejo who says they're facing similar excess salary problems (Vallejo is much smaller, and is also technically bankrupt).

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. why would taxpayers, who are facing paycuts and terminations, want to carry these big pensions?

[anigbrowl]

7. Well, a lot of those pension deals were made in better times

And realistically, we don't want our police or firefighters having to struggle on a pension after years of service. On the other hand endlessly rising salaries/pension commitments are a feelgood measure for voters and politicians - sometimes municipalities make commitments that aren't really affordable because nobody wants to take the unpopular stance of capping salaries, particularly not those of emergency workers. Voters like to support their local heroes and politicians need the backing of their unions at election time.

My attitude is that this is high-value work that should be well-compensated, but sometimes seniority pay gets so expensive that you could hire 2 or more junior people for the same amount. Fortunately that's not the only consideration - I gather one nearby county is considering winding down its SWAT team and questioning whether they really need to spend all that money on tactical equipment and training that probably has little or no effect on the crime stats. No easy answers to these kind of questions, unfortunately.