Comments on: Study Says Public Pay Out Of Line

By: Louis Liuag

Louis Liuag — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 18:07:26 +0000

The current Federal, State of California, County, City, Educational retirement system WILL BANKRUPT the country. The first will be the local agencies.
I support the elimination of the current bargining union system that donate huge funds (all public)to support pawn politicians that have the adacity to INCREASE their own salaries and all civic employees under dire monetary deficits. There is no mechanism to lower salaries, benefits in periods of financial impoverishment.
Go FOR IT !!!!

By: Al in SoCal

Al in SoCal — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 19:48:01 +0000

This entire conversation is so lame. Private industry workers attacking state workers, state workers attacking private workers – when the real people to blame are the industries that are raking in record profits and providing less and less benefits so that when we see one group of people who do have a decent benefit structure we instantly get jealous and want them reduced the paltry 2 week vacation, 5 day sick time, 8 day vacation time most employers give.

Instead of ragging on state workers – how about ragging on our own industries that have “normalized” terrible benefits? I’m not a public worker, but I don’t think that just because my employer gives me not-so-great benies means that everyone else should get crap benefits as well.

By: reality

reality — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 16:23:57 +0000

Times are tough and the public sector in la and other metros have been living fat for some time they should have invested and saved on these salaries. the municipalities could go bust.
The sentiment is how do you pay for these excessive benefits w/o revenue? And it should be across the board not just new hires. reduce all existing pensioners by 50% and scale back inflated final years. no cost of living increases in tough times and reduced %’s. I have to admit anyone would be envious of such excesses and jealous.

By: WorkingInTheOC

WorkingInTheOC — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 20:08:10 +0000

Orange County has already taken steps toward pension reform. 15% of my gross pay now is taken for my portion of the pension plan. In addition, we gave up pay raises for 3 out of 4 years in the mid 2000’s, when others were getting raises. We agreed to cover the entire cost of an enhanced pension plan, and we are.
A strict 401K type plan would not be wise. Our union and County Supervisors worked out a balanced plan of a small pension (very similar in cost and benefit) to what Social Security provides the private sector, with a 401K type plan available in addition to it. It is not wise to only have a 401K with no pension AND no Social Security. This could lead to people retiring with nothing. And as much as my fiscally conservative leanings don’t want a government-based retirement plan like Social Security, there are some Americans who retire with nothing but Social Security, having squandered all their other earnings. Some forced savings is necessary, or we will once again see destitute elderly.

By: Assembly Line Worker Job Description

Assembly Line Worker Job Description — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:07:03 +0000

Is the salaried part really true..i don't think so! Assembly Line Worker Job Description

By: John Gardner

John Gardner — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 04:39:52 +0000

This was true even back at the time of the last local survey we did in Bakersfield before I retired from a major oil company: the “premier” employers in terms of pay were clearly the city, county and state, and we couldn’t even hope to compete. Since then (i.e., Gov. Davis) the retirement plan was boosted to far exceed private industry (and, beyond that, includes administrative provisions/policies that we would have viewed as simply “crazy”) …

By: Bruce

Bruce — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 06:10:14 +0000

mrcx,

I’m a perfectly middle-class Californian in the private sector, in a job where I make roughly what a starting police officer does in my town. In the past two years, I’ve taken a five percent pay cut, seen bonuses (never more than perhaps $3,000 in a good year) disappear, had our 401(k) match suspended and had new pension credits (for a 1 percent at 65 plan) frozen. The 401(k) match has since returned. Still waiting for better times for the rest.

So with all due respect, hop on the clue train.

By: DavidfromLosGatos

DavidfromLosGatos — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 23:44:31 +0000

“Please include me and all of the other evil public employees when you talk of taxpayers.We are not royalty living apart from society.We all pay taxes.”

Except, of course, for the tax-free “disability” portion of the pensions. It was nice and timely for the newly “retired” Bell Police chief to give us all a text-book lesson on how to both scam a fat pension AND avoid paying taxes on half of it, so he won’t have to contribute to the fat pensions of the other scammers.

By: Tough Love

Tough Love — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 23:42:53 +0000

Dear Proud Union Man and MRCx209:

My advocating for to change can be summarized as follows …

At EVERY pay level (from the $25K worker to the $300K executive), the value of the employer (meaning TAXPAYER ) paid-for share of the “typical” Civil Servants’ retirement package (pension & retiree healthcare) is 2-4 times greater in value than that of the employer paid-for share of a comparably paid Private Sector worker retiring at the SAME age and with the SAME years of service …. and that 2-4 times rises to 4-6 times for “safety workers”.

You can try to spin this any way you like, but it will still be unaffordably expensive, unsustainable, and grossly unfair to taxpayers whose contributions (together with the interest earned thereon) pay for 80-90% of these pensions & benefits.

Please tell me WHY you thing this is “fair”.

By: Proud Union Man

Proud Union Man — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:44:12 +0000

Please include me and all of the other evil public employees when you talk of taxpayers.We are not royalty living apart from society.We all pay taxes. I would like to add that Lanny Ebenstein’s missive had no footnotes or citations supporting his claims.