Pension bigger than salary?

Most people understand that your pension will be less than your salary. You don’t have to commute any more, so your car expenses are down. You can downsize your house because your kids moved out — or at least that used to be the case before high housing costs and bad job prospects kept kids around. And there’s a good chance your mortgage is paid off, or soon will be.

But they do things differently in Contra Costa County. Dan Borenstein writes:

Warren Katchmar’s top annual salary was $102,896; his starting pension was $104,020. Similarly, Bhupinder Dhaliwal traded up from a $135,433 salary to yearly retirement pay of $143,462.

How did these Central Contra Costa Sanitary District employees collect more in retirement than working? They leveraged generous district leave accrual policies and retirement system rules that enabled workers to spike pensions as much as 40 percent.

The rules were never legal. But public employee retirement systems in Contra Costa, Alameda and Merced counties had ignored past court decisions, prompting state lawmakers in 2012 to pass a law reaffirming the earlier rulings.

Contra Costa Superior Court Judge David Flinn recently upheld the new law, ending most of the spiking for future retirees. Labor unions in the three counties, who claim the law violates past promises, have appealed.

Hey, it’s government.