Now that only the worst repugs still support his torpedoed campaign for 4th District supervisor (a district in which he doesn’t live), Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu seems to have decided that chumming it up with Democrats is his only prayer. Seems he even went so far as to attended the big Democrat Labor Day bash at the Santa Ana Zoo.
While Harry Sidhu was at Zoo, whooping it up for California’s #1 union stooge Jerry Brown, as reported by the Orange Juice blog here, he also happened to run across Pam Keller. Poor Harry selling his soul again just to get elected. Jeeze, this guy would do just about anything to be a political somebody. Will he re-register as a Democrat? Why not?
Well I hate to pop your bubble, Hide and Seek, but people can see right through your transparent BS, fake residences and all. All they can see is Sidhu the assclown.
Last year CalPERS reported that the city of Fullerton is facing an unfunded pension liability of $37,531,831 on our public safety employees’ retirement plan. That’s the amount that we currently owe our public servants above and beyond all future budgeted payments.
Of course, many professional actuarials believe that CalPERS’ figures are purposefully understated. They’re just being nice. What we’ve learned over the last few years is that CalPERS and the unions have been feeding our politicians a big fat load of lies, which were used to pump up their pensions. The figures are derived from proven unrealistic investment returns that can never be achieved. Studies conducted by Stanford grads and the NCPA agree.
So we asked an industry insider to recalculate Fullerton’s unfunded pension liability using a realistic rate of return for a government pension system. While he could not do a detailed actuarial report for our city, he stated that using a more realistic 5% long-term rate of return “would raise the unfunded liability by somewhere between 60% to 120% in most pension systems.”
Based on those figures, it’s safe to say that Fullerton’sreal unfunded pension liability is somewhere between $60,000,000 and $83,000,000. That’s just for the police and fire unions, which has about 250 currently employed members.
Wrap your head around that. Sixty million dollars of unfunded, unplanned debt just for our little city of Fullerton. That money will not be spent on roads, parks, infrastructure, libraries or public safety. It will be given away to retired public employees, long after they’ve stopped serving our city.
If we don’t do something about it now, it’s going to get worse.
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.
Just when you thought a government official could not sink any lower…
Push play and listen to the ridiculous reason High Speed Rail board member and Curt Pringle idolizer Quentin Kopp gives for not having a business plan:
The GOP Initiatives Endorsement Committee met this past Saturday to debate whether it should recommend to the State GOP to endorse Proposition 22.
Watch and see what happened during the questions and answer period. The proponents for Yes on 22 focused their argument on misdirected “local control,” and the fear that if it doesn’t pass Arnold Schwarzenegger will raid the cities’ Redevelopment funds and give them away to the schools. Hooray! The only problem is that by the time this is voted on Arnold will about as lame a duck as Daffy, and probably already reading the script for Terminator 5.
Did the most vocal Yes on 22 proponent, Jon Fleischman (hot dog alert @ 3:18), really think the voting members in the room would be dumb enough to buy that “Arnold will cook up a bad budget” line? Well, they did – the vote was 9 Ayes and 8 Noes. However, good news came on Sunday when the recommendation of the Initiatives Committee was tossed out by the GOP party who gave a thumbs down to the Prop 22 proponents.
Check out Chuck Devore, one of the few non-repuglicans in office. He gets it.
And yes, I really do have to wonder if Fleischman was on the Yes on 22 payroll. The Howard Jarvis group was no doubt bought off by the purchase of a slate mailer.
Proposition 22 here, is an initiative supported by the California League of Cities and Redevelopment agencies and their lobbyists.
Voting yes on 22 would prohibit the State from restricting the use of tax revenues dedicated by law to fund local government services, community redevelopment projects, or transportation projects and services. It would prohibit the State from delaying the distribution of tax revenues for these purposes even when the Governor deems it necessary due to a severe state fiscal hardship.
The question boils down to whether the State should have the authority to redistribute redevelopment property tax increment funds and use it for schools, and fire departments.
The clip below was taken at the GOP state convention held this past weekend in San Diego and features the Yes on 22 proponents debating State Assemblyman Chris Norby at the Endorsement Committee meeting. Each party was given 3 minutes to make their pitch, the Yes on 22 proponents spoke for 3-1/2 minutes, however when Assemblyman Norby was only 2-1/2 minutes into his speech (6:58) one of the 22 proponents rudely interrupted Norby and yelled “TIME” even though Norby still had 30 seconds left of his 3 minutes.
My next post will feature video footage of questions and answers by both Norby (No on 22) and the Yes on 22 proponents. There’s also a little treat at the very end of the clip, enjoy!
Enjoy these two clips that feature an exchange between County Supervisors Shawn Nelson and Janet Nguyen. The issue is pulling the plug on the moribund Civic Center Joint Powers Authority, an agency that was created when Lyndon Johnson was president, and that has served no legal or practical function for almost ten years.
You would think that supposed “conservatives” would pile on to the opportunity of killing a government entity, especially one that doesn’t do anything. Well, you would have to think again. Just listen to the drivel that escapes the Board Chair’s lips and dribbles down her chin. Ay, ay, ay!
The Grand Jury has reported on the OCTA’s budget mess and their deficiency in Bus service. Here is how the report begins:
The mission statement of the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) is a masterpiece of brevity and focus:
“Our mission is to enhance the quality of life in Orange County by delivering safer, faster, and more efficient transportation solutions.”
The report identifies how the OCTA had the right idea when it cut bus services and raised fares by calling the action prudent. Then later the report notes that the rise in fares had negative effect on the ridership. Ergo, we must lower bus fares but only after full state funding is restored.
The report also calls into question competing priorities with the federal handout of $2.25 billion for high-speed rail and the $143 million set aside for the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, which the City of Anaheim is not contributing to. The Grand Jury points out that OCTA needs to review its priorities with these funds. The Grand Jury says that the “governmental relations committee of the OCTA Board should urge Orange County ’s congressional delegation to lobby for legislative modification of the $2.25 billion.”
The final recommendation by the Grand Jury is for OC’s political and transportation leaders to hold a series of public meetings, the goal of which would be aimed at creating a countywide transit agency that will have sufficient authority and funding to overcome parochialism in developing a modern transit system.
I love this gem from the report:
One member of the transit agency’s board characterized the economic impact this way: “The businesses and industries in Orange County that depend on low-income workers would grind to a halt.”
It would appear that we taxpayers subsidize bus service (to the tune of more than 80% of the total cost) so that low-income earners can keep their low-income jobs which helps keep low-income employers staffed with low-cost employees… Ergo, you and I subsidize burger stands, Walmarts, and rich people with nannies and maids.
Dear Friends: The issue of Pension Abuse continues to dominate the National, State and local scene. If you haven’t already heard Jack Dean with Pension Tsunami speak on this important topic, hopefully today is a great relaxing day to do just that. Happy August 1st, 2010!
