Dissecting McKinley’s Phony Pension Reform

The other day we challenged retired police chief and $215,000 public pensioner Pat McKinley to put some real meat behind his dubious claim that he will “work to reform public employee pensions.”

Over the weekend we discovered a letter posted to McKinley’s website purporting to declare his position on pension reform. Exciting… until we read it. The letter actually commits to nothing and woefully understates the changes necessary to even begin correcting this problem.

Just say anything

Let’s run through Pat’s suggestions one by one. It’s important to note that McKinley’s letter says pension reform must contain ONLY ONE of the following:

Increase the amount contributed to the plan by Employee Contributions – Necessary, but wholly insufficient. While giving taxpayers some breathing room, demanding employees pay a little bit more does nothing to address the core issue, which is the unsustainable nature of pension guarantees when combined with the power of public employee union lobby. By itself, this change only slightly delays the pain.

Increase the amount contributed to the plan by Employer Contributions – Unbelievable. Increasing employer contributions is another way of saying we should raising taxes to pay for pensions. So now it would be safe to say that Pat McKinley wants to raise your taxes, but it’s really hard to believe he would write anything this dumb. For now, we’ll just assume that he has no idea what  he’s talking about.

Slow the accrual of pension benefits by returning the formula to its previous level – Legally a change like this change can only be made for new employees, which would do nothing to address the massive unfunded liability that we have already accrued. Furthermore, it leaves the door wide open for future abuse when the unions become more powerful.

Slow the accrual of pension benefits by increasing the normal retirement age to reflect the longer life expectancies of our City employees – Same problem as above. The commitments we’ve made to current employees cannot be changed without a bankruptcy. The only lever we really have left salary and to a lesser extent, contributions. Cut salaries, raise employee contributions… or go broke.

Slow the payout of retirement benefits by lowering the Cost of Living Adjustment in retirement – The cost of living adjustment is about 2% a year. Reducing that, if it’s even legal in California, is hardly enough to sustain hundreds of public safety employee’s earning 90% of their final year’s pay for the next 30 years. And once again, there’s nothing to prevent another band of RINO’s from reinstating this benefit the next time CalPERS overstates its assets.

So what have we learned? McKinley has thrown out a bunch of half baked ideas to fool you into thinking that he wants pension reform, but it really boils down to almost nothing useful. And of course, even after writing this letter, McKinley has not committed to any pension reform.

Woefully inadequate

We’ll say it again: Taxpayer-funded defined benefit plans must come to an end. The private sector learned long ago that they are completely unsustainable and also unnecessary. All new employees should be given defined contribution plans, while current employees should be made to pay as much as possible towards their own retirement, in order to mitigate the damage caused by their own unions and CalPERS through deception and poor planning.

The $215,000 Man Blurts Out “Pension Reform”

The other day we had a look at Pat McKinley’s ballot statement and something surprising popped up. Well, not really. Squeezed into the middle of his I-riddled statement was the curt phrase “I will work to reform public employee pensions.”

That's what they told me to say.

That’s a vague assertion, and frankly it’s hard to believe when it’s coming out of the mouth of one of the pension system’s most noted abusers – a double-dipping  bureaucrat who pulls down well over two hundred grand per year in retirement thanks to a ridiculous 3-at-50 pension system that’s now bringing the city to its’ knees.

So what does McKinley mean by “pension reform” anyway?

It’s hard to tell at this point. That’s good for Pat; bad for the rest of us. You see, as long as he can keep all this pension reform talk clouded in empty platitudes, he can pretend to be a reformer and maybe nobody will notice that he hasn’t promised to really change anything.

So Pat, here’s the gauntlet: You need to commit 100% to serious pension reform. That means two things:

  1. A mandatory 401(k)-style plan to replace the defined benefit for all new hires
  2. Current safety employees must pay the full 9% towards their own retirement, as required by state law.

Take a look at our city’s unfunded pension liability and do the math. Any lesser reform will amount to nothing more than a laughable gesture to taxpayers, ensuring that even more pain awaits us down the road.

The $215,000 Man

What valuable piece of manpower is worth paying over $200,000 per annum not to do anything?

I'm your man...

If you guessed former Fullerton Police Chief Patrick McKinley you’d be right on the money. If there was ever a poster boy for out of control police pensions it would be Chief McKinley. See, the big guy pulls down a cool $96K a year from his old job at the LAPD that he’s been collecting since he left 17 years ago; then there’s the $118,000 he now rakes in from CalPERS, presumably from his time as Fullerton’s top cop.

Yipes! $215,000 a year in pension receipts; or about $18,000 a month; or $4100 every single week. More than he ever earned actually working. For the rest of his freaking life. If he lives another 20 years that’ll add up to $4,300,000 on top of what he’s already got, not counting cost of living increases.

Why is this important, apart from the obvious illustration of public safety pensions run amok? Because the word on Commonwealth Avenue is that Mr. McKinley is being promoted for City Council appointment to replace Shawn Nelson by Don Bankhead and Dick Jones – two other public pensioneers, one of whom is also a former cop.

In the RINO world of Bankhead and Jones this sort of thing is just hunky-dory. But for a lot of people – liberals and conservatives alike, the thought of this massive double dipper making pension decisions that affect Fullerton taxpayers is reminiscent of the fox guarding the hen house.

And of course we also remember McKinley as the police vest carney and vocal backer of the hideous Linda Ackerwoman creature.

Sorry guys. No sale.

800 Pound Gorilla For Council in 2010?

A while back Congressman and purveyor of lousy RINO city council candidates, Ed Royce, was overheard bragging about the 800 pound gorilla he was going to be unleashing on Fullerton political scene. Who was this electoral juggernaut? None other than now former Police Chief Pat McKinley.

He's big. He's bad. He's baaaaack!
He's big. He's bad. He's baaaaack!

With McKinley’s endorsement of Mrs. Ackerman to replace her disgraced pal Mike Duvall, the pieces all seem to fit. It looks like McKinley has indeed decided to run for City Council next year and has worked out an endorsement swap with the Repuglican elite.

The choice of McKinley on the part of the Repugs would in no way be surprising. As an ex-cop he could be counted on to secure the law ‘n order vote as well as charm the bluehairs. He’s getting up there age-wise, and in poses zero political threat to the Repug machine. Who cares if he is an ex-city government employee and likely to go along with every staff proposal and boondoggle? He would be following in the proud footsteps of Don Bankhead, Dick Jones, Leland Wilson, Mike Clesceri, Julie Sa, Peter Godfrey, Buck Catlin, and even Dick Ackerman himself. Who knows? Maybe even the Yellowing Observers might go along for the ride. After all they went with Dick Jones, right?

Best of all, he’s not a female Democrat, the hideous monster that inhabits Ed Royce’s closet at night.

Ed left the closet door open again...
Oops! Ed's left the closet door open again...

Ex-Chief Lines Up With Ackerman Clan

Friends, we just received this entertaining e-mail from a devoted reader: 

So there I am in my kitchen, washing dishes on a quiet Sunday night when my phone rings. Who is is? The last person on Earth I would ever expect. Fullerton’s former Chief of Police, Pat McKinley. The guy who wasted untold hours “designing” a dumb police “vest” that, upon retirement he could sell back to the people of Fullerton. The zombie who let all his pals in downtown Fullerton create havoc and stick US with the bill. Oh yeah, that wonderful public servant.

How'd you like to buy my vest? Again.
How'd you like to buy my vest? Again.

 Well, actually, it’s a robocall, and this slacker starts peddling Linda Ackerman for Assembly!  Well I guess they all have it wired the same way.

If I needed any more encouragement to oppose the carpetbagging woman from Irvine, this was it: a guy who milked his job in Fullerton for over 15 years as the City went to the dogs as he worked on his lame-ass vest that the City bought with their Obama stimulus dollars! 

Thanks for the e-mail, Friend. This is really sad news for Fullerton. What it means is that McKinley has cut a deal to peddle his backside with Ackerman and Royce to run for our City Council himself next year – with the support of the Usual Suspects. Well, that cat’s out of the bag!

Just what we need. Another ex-public employee negotiating with the public employees! Some Republican!

Departing Police Chief Brings Home The Bacon

2009pigbook
Porktacular reading material

Just in time for his retirement, our beloved police chief Pat McKinley brought home a $100,000 federal earmark for his new body armor which he designed in a partnership with seasoned police contractor Safariland, a subsidiary of Europe’s largest military contractor. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez congratulated herself for rooting up the money for the high-priced vests as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act.

What could be wrong with this earmark? It’s nothing but free money for the City of Fullerton – an unconditional gift from the federal government, right?

But the earmark qualifies as official government pork according to government watchdogs.

Citizens Against Government Waste have identified 10,160 projects at a cost of $19.6 billion in the 12 Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2009 that symbolize the most egregious and blatant examples of pork.  All of the items in the Congressional Pig Book Summary meet at least one of these criteria, but most satisfy at least two:

  • Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
  • Not specifically authorized;
  • Not competitively awarded;
  • Not requested by the President;
  • Greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
  • Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
  • Serves only a local or special interest.
Officer Rubio shows off his new vest while demonstrating a choke hold for our unsuspecting photographer.
Officer Rubio shows off his new vest while demonstrating a choke hold for our unsuspecting photographer.

There are two sides to every slab of government pork: on one hand, earmarks return a portion of Fullerton citizens’ federal tax dollars back to the city itself. If Fullerton doesn’t grab it’s share of the pie, the money will merely be assigned to some other bloated project in some other needy town far, far away.

On the flip side, earmarks represent the very worst in fiscal responsibility and big government. Appropriations Committee members arbitrarily pick winners and losers by earmarking funds for specific recipients.  Lobbyists and their congressmen bypass authorizing committees directly for pet projects, creating a giant fiscal free-for-all that undermines the Constitution and makes states and localities increasingly beholden to the federal government. Finally, the federal deficit grows unchecked and our taxes increase via the debasement of our currency.

Pork projects have haunted this nation since our early years, but they have always been reviled by fiscally responsible citizens. Thomas Jefferson considered earmarks “a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress & their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money”. If Jefferson knew about the exponential increase in federal earmarks over the last decade, he would likely rise from his grave to scribe a brand new Declaration of Independence.

In the end, the chiefs’ friends at Safariland are $100,000 richer, our police have new vests that cost twice as much as the old, and most importantly, the fruits of our labor have been lost in a sea of unaccountability.