Sound Off for March 1, 2009
| Saturday, Feb 28 2009 08:17 PM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 01:02 PM
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Reader: I was impressed with James Geluso's story last Sunday on city pensions. I found it to be well-researched and for the most part, unbiased. I also found it curious that it was published on the eve of a critical council vote on whether or not to sign a labor contract with its police officers, a contract that is almost two years overdue.
I also noticed a few errors and omissions that I would like to clear up.
First and foremost, the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) in California is arguably one of the best retirement plans in the world. It is a defined contribution system with a guaranteed rate of return for the retiree depending on length of service. Both the employer and employee pay into the system.
It's a good, stable system that has been in existence since the Great Depression, tailored for employees who serve in government. There are no year-end bonuses, stock-options, or myriad of other retirement perks commonly found in the private sector.
Moreover, the 3-at-50 formula (allowing an employee to retire at or beyond age 50 collecting 3 percent of his pay per year served) is the industry standard for large departments tasked with policing large, urban, crime- and gang-infested areas. In fact, there are more than 350 California public safety departments with this plan.
I also found the article's "How We Compare" box was conveniently small. Fresno's 2.7 percent @ 55 for its public safety is an anomaly for a city that size, and Shafter? Is that a big city now? Why not use Stockton or Modesto, which both have 3 percent @ 50.
Secondly, the conclusion about Bakersfield being "far from" Vallejo's financial situation was correct. However, the real reasons for Vallejo's problems were gross mismanagement, speculating in real estate investments, and locking in employee salary schedules that they could not afford.
For example, the Vallejo city manager was recently given a 40 percent pay increase. Also, the Vallejo police officers' labor contract had an agreement in it that they would be the highest paid officers among their surveyed cities. In contrast, the Bakersfield city manager's recent pay raises were reasonable, and the Bakersfield police officers are being paid 30 percent below the average of their comparable cities. In fact, Bakersfield officers' pay raises have been less than Social Security's for the past seven years, and still they have twice offered to pay their entire 9 percent employee contribution to PERS but the city rejected the offer.
Finally, the article fails to reveal the well-kept secret about the tens of millions of dollars the city never paid to CalPERS during the good times. The city spent that money earmarked for pensions on one-time money projects like arenas, ice rinks, pools instead of saving it for the inevitable economic downturns and rainy day as PERS recommends. The city does take most of the risks, but also nets the gains in good economic times. Let's have an accounting of the millions of dollars of pension funds appropriated for projects that benefited the Abernathy group.
— Todd Dickson Secretary, Bakersfield Police Officers Association
Jenner: The "How We Compare" box was based in part on the city's salary survey. Shafter was chosen not because of size, but because its proximity makes it, along with Kern County, viable competition with Bakersfield for public safety employees.
The story does refer to the city not saving: "The city could have planned for the bad times by saving money when times were good, said Steven Frates of the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College.
Some cities did that. Most, including Bakersfield, didn't."
We could have gone into more detail about this, but we decided not to for length.
But the city doesn't have "money earmarked for pensions" that it diverted. Rather, the city pays PERS what PERS says it has to pay. When times were good, and the city was flush, yes, money was spent on capital projects instead of being socked away for when times went bad.
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Reader: I'm calling in regard to the Feb. 20 Californian, which proclaimed, "By popular demand the second crossword puzzle is back! D3." You put more into saying that the crossword is back than actually in the crossword.
I don't think that it is back. I think that you got a crappier crossword that's smaller and easier and you put it in large print wasting space in your newspaper and then put the old crossword back. People who like crosswords don't like simple, huge-print crosswords, they like a challenge.
— Kelsey Cowan
Jenner: The crossword puzzle we restored to the Classified pages is authored and produced by the same people who created the crossword we eliminated several months ago.
For the first few days of its return, it did run at a slightly larger size. Sorry you were disappointed.
Reader: I just wanted to thank someone for putting the second crossword puzzle back in. Thank you so much.
— Candy Bennison
Reader: I just wanted you to know that I really appreciate your putting that second crossword puzzle back in the paper. I look forward to that all the time.
— Evelyn Hupp
•••
Jenner: Here are a couple of post-scripts to last Sunday's column.
I responded to a reader who questioned why Judge Michael Bush would seek a second psychiatrist's opinion regarding Anita Gilbert's competency to stand trial.
I replied that perhaps he was trying to be fair. I've since learned that the penal code states that judges shall obtain a second opinion in mental competency motions when the defendant is not the party seeking the ruling. So his action was required by law.
Also, Ron Edwards, the grandfather of a winner in the Oral Language Festival called to thank me for explaining how we cover events such as the Oral Language Festival.
He also pointed out that the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, which sponsors most of these competitions, also posts photos and results of these competitions on the superintendent's Web site at http://kcsos.kern.org/news.
