… an auto allowance of $7,200 a year plus a mileage reimbursement for most trips at 57.5 cents a mile. … An independent committee that reviewed supervisors’ compensation found none of the other comparable counties it surveyed allowed such double-dipping. The committee recommended ending the mileage reimbursement except for travel out of county.

 

The committee’s position was buttressed by county calculations showing the auto allowance alone covers the costs of operating a car for county business, even for Piepho, the supervisor with the most mileage.

 

Nevertheless, supervisors decided to keep the auto allowance and mileage reimbursement for trips outside their own districts. In Piepho’s case, she will keep almost the entire mileage allowance.

 

Based on her 2014 travel expenses, 93 percent of her trips have been to destinations outside her district. So the board’s decision means that she will retain mileage reimbursement of about $4,400 a year. Under the committee’s recommendation, it would have been trimmed to about $1,580.

Board sparked furor with its big pay raise

This sort of controversy is nothing new to the 1.05 million residents of Contra Costa County, located due east of the Bay Area. Last October, supervisors faced a public backlash after voting themselves a big raise. This account is from the Contra Costa Times:

MARTINEZ — After giving most of their employees raises of about 4 percent in contract negotiations this year, Contra Costa supervisors Tuesday decided they deserved something more: a 33 percent hike, boosting their annual salaries to more than $129,000 a year.

By a 4-1 vote, the supervisor salaries will now be permanently tied to those of Superior Court judges, which is a common practice among county boards throughout the state and eliminates the need for the elected bodies to vote themselves an unpopular pay bump.

 

In Contra Costa, the salaries are now set at 70 percent of judicial salaries …

 

The Richmond Confidential website placed this pay scale in context:

 

“[The] new salary structure gives Contra Costa County’s board more money than the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties. It’s also higher than those of California state Senate and Assembly members, who make a base salary of about $90,000. …”

Backlash leads to reduction in salary boost

But after critics quickly rounded up 40,000 signatures opposing the pay hike, the supervisors voted in January to rescind the entire raise. Last month, they approved a plan in which their salaries would go up in phases by a total of 20 percent, to $116,840, with the final increase on Jan. 1, 2018.

The controversy could haunt the political futures of some of the supervisors, particularly Mary Piepho, the ambitious daughter of former state Sen. John Nejedly, who is now deceased. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson, who normally doesn’t pay much attention to Bay Area bedroom communities, lampooned Piepho in January for insisting that the $33,000 pay hike was a “salary adjustment,” not a raise.

But this ridicule didn’t stop Piepho from leading the push to have Contra Costa supervisors get both a flat vehicle reimbursement and a per-mile repayment.

Last year 19 of California’s 55 members of the U.S. Congress drew pensions from a state-backed public retirement plan, according to a CalWatchdog.com analysis of financial disclosures for the year 2013.

Payments from 2013 – the last reported year available – came from municipal, education and state pension funds and ranged from annual payouts of $3,800 to $70,000. Four members take payments from two or more public pension funds.

The top recipient was Rep. Lois Capps, who collected a total of $70,049 in 2013 – $20,615 from the California State Teachers Retirement System and $49,434 from the University of California Retirement System.

The 77-year-old lawmaker from Santa Barbara is a former instructor at Santa Barbara City College. Capps has been receiving the dual pensions since 1998, when she first was elected.

Members of Congress receive a salary of $174,000. They are not prohibited from taking their taxpayer-subsidized retirement while serving in Washington.

Taking a state pension while serving in Congress is hardly noticed “because it happens in so many different layers that people aren’t tracking it,” said Steve Ellis, vice president for the Washington D.C.-based Taxpayers for Common Sense.

“And besides, the people who are getting this kind of information are the people who would be getting these payments in the future.”

He added that the system has no rules prohibiting what detractors call “double-dipping.”

“All of us are paying two sets of employees, one working and one retired,” Ellis said.

Executive benefits

But pensions are part of the compensation package, like any job in the private sector, insists Steve Maviglio, a California political consultant who represents unions that back public pensions.

“It’s like an executive who hops from one job to another,” Maviglio said. “Should they have to give up the benefits from a previous job?”

Besides, he said, “We’re trying to attract the best and the brightest to be public servants and if they are forced to give up the benefits they’ve earned at a previous job, it would kill that incentive [to serve].”

In addition to the 19 pensioners in the state’s Washington delegation, nine members note on their disclosures that they hold an interest in a public pension but are not yet taking the money.

The pension funds tapped include the County of San Mateo, which paid Rep. Anna Eshoo $12,020 for her time on the board of supervisors from 1982 to 1992; and Marin County, where Sen. Barbara Boxer drew $4,456 for serving on the county board of supervisors from 1976 to 1982. Boxer has announced her retirement beginning in Jan. 2017.

Rep. Scott Peters, 56, who served on the San Diego City Council from 2000 to 2008, noted on his disclosure that he received a $20,703 annual pension from the San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System, but donated it to the San Diego Library Department.

CalPERS and CalSTRS

The majority of the pension draws came from the state’s California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which administers the Legislators’ Retirement System. CalPERS covers members of the statehouse first elected prior to Nov. 1990, when voters passed Proposition 140. The initiative canceled pensions for future legislators and imposed term limits. The California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013 took effect in January 2013 and greatly altered the plan, as well as major educator pension arrangements.

The California State Teachers Retirement System also is a major provider of pension income for U.S. lawmakers. And some, such as Rep. Michael Honda, get something from both sources.

Honda, 73, reported income of $38,135 from CalSTRS and $13,393 from CalPERS, plus $12,754 from the teacher system as part of a deceased-spouse family allowance.

Still others have not yet tapped their pension funds and report the accrued benefits as unearned income or an asset. Those funds are allowed to be reported in a broad range as the asset is seen with the potential for growth or reduction.

Rep. Judy Chu reports her pension with CalSTRS has a value of between $100,001 and $250,000 and her CalPERS fund between $1,001 and $15,000.

Chu, 61, served on the Monterey Park City Council and taught in the Los Angeles Community College District.

Rep. Tony Cardenas reported he will receive a pension from the city of Los Angeles when he turns 55, in 2018. His payout, he noted, is an “undetermined amount.”

Some members of the California delegation have seen their payments grow over the years at a rate outpacing standard interest returns for their funds.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s $55,690 pension payout in 2013 from her days as a member of the Board of Supervisors and mayor of San Francisco has grown 36 percent since 2002, when she collected $40,929. Her draw is based on 18 years of work ending in 1988. Her 2002 pension pay was equal to between $53,000 and $62,500 in 2013, according to a relative-worth calculation.

Feinstein, 81, first was elected to San Francisco city office in 1969.

Then there are the benefits that are too good to give up.

Even though federal lawmakers are privy to some generous health insurance, including dental care, former Rep. Lynn Woolsey, who retired in 2013 after 20 years in Congress, reported she still carried her vision and dental care from her days as a member of the Petaluma City Council from 1984 to 1993.

Steve Miller can be reached at: 517-775-9952 and avalanche50@hotmail.com. His website is: http://avalanche50.com/.

By Chris Reed

Jerry Brown’s speaking style — learned, florid, meandering — is so unusual that he’ll always be able to get away with his shtick that he’s not like other politicians. But his appalling push to gut open-government laws in California shows he’s just another primitive pol who reacts to negative coverage by seeking to punish the press.

The amount that his budget proposal would save by reducing state reimbursements for no-longer-mandatory local compliance with document requests is meager compared to the larger state budget. Meanwhile, the value of transparency in government is proven every day around the world. The cost of providing documents is small — and getting smaller — in comparison to the money saved by exposing government incompetence, malfeasance and corruption.

Governor has to know value of transparency

The governor has to know this. He’s no dummy. (Just ask him.)

So what could be motivating Brown’s attempt to gut transparency and stick his thumb in the eye of the media?

Let’s use Occam’s Razor and keep it simple. How about all the negative press the Brown administration has faced in the past two years?

Yes, the gov has gotten credit for trying to improve the state’s horrible budgeting practices and for pushing pension reform. But there have also been tons of stories, columns and editorials that he can’t care for.

The long list of stories Jerry wishes were ignored

For starters, there’s the bullet-train boondoggle. The beat reporters covering the California High-Speed Rail Authority have done a fabulous job in the past year of showing what a farce it is, making up for the horrible coverage seen in 2008, when voters were lied into giving the project $9.95 billion in state bond funds.

Then there’s the state’s never-ending computer fiascos. The state that’s home to Silicon Valley can’t bring its computer payroll system into the 1990s, much less the 21st century. There’s also the computer debacle with the DMV.

Then there’s the scandal with the state parks agency hiding millions of dollars from the Legislature and the public while seeking to close parks.

Then there’s the scandal with dozens of state executives getting paid millions of dollars in extra money in part-time jobs — really de facto overtime — with the state.

Then there’s the Bay Bridge scandal in which a multibillion-dollar state project is riddled with shoddy work and shoddier oversight.

Even ‘triumphs’ have prompted press skepticism

Even on issues where the governor has gotten good marks, he faces intense skepticism.

On the budget, Dan Walters has often pointed out the excesses of Brown’s claims to have shaped California up.

And on pension reform, the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial page depicted Brown’s efforts as woefully inadequate.

So looking at this big picture, why wouldn’t Jerry Brown enjoy kneeing the media in the groin?

Like Michael Jackson, he’d have us believe he’s not like other guys.

Yes he is. Oh, yes he is.