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W*******a
发帖数: 1769 | 1 http://biggovernment.com/dspady/2011/05/06/200000-lifeguards-to
millions-in-retirement/
$200,000 Lifeguards to Receive Millions in Retirement
by David Spady
Public outrage over lavish government employee compensation and pensions
is becoming more heated as new revelations about excesses seem to crop
up every week. The latest: Newport Beach, California, where some
lifeguards have compensation packages that exceed $200,000 and where
these “civil servants” can retire with lucrative government pensions at
age 50.
Newport Beach has two groups of lifeguards. Seasonal tower lifeguards
cover Newport’s seven miles of beach during the busy summer months.
Part-time seasonal guards make $16 to $22 per hour with no benefits.
They are the young people who man the towers and do the lion’s share of
the rescues. Another group of highly compensated full-time staff work
year-round and seldom, if ever, climb into a tower. According to the
City Manager, the typical Daily Deployment Model in the winter for these
lifeguards is 10 hours per day for four days each week, mainly spent
driving trucks around, painting towers, ordering uniforms and doing
basic office work—none are actually manning lifeguard towers.
Like many communities across California, the city of Newport Beach is
facing the harsh realities of budgeting with less revenue after housing
values and the stock market plummeted. Now the city’s full-time
lifeguard force has finally come under scrutiny. Next week the city
council will decide if cuts are needed to the full-time lifeguard force
where last year the top earner received $211,000 in pay and benefits,
including a $400 sun protection allowance. In 2010 all but one of the
city’s full-time lifeguard staff had annual compensation packages worth
over $120,000.
Not bad pay for a lifeguard – but what makes these jobs most attractive
is the generous retirements.
These lifeguards can retire at age 50 with full medical benefits for
life. One recently retired lifeguard, age 51, receives a government
retirement of over $108,000 per year—for the rest of his life. He will
make well over $3 million in retirement if he lives to age 80.
According to the City Manager, a new full-time guard costs less to hire
than what is spent on this one retiree. The city now spends more
taxpayer dollars on retired lifeguards than it does on those who are
working.
Reports of excessive pay and generous pensions have fueled a debate
across the nation over union influence on government spending.
Government unions were able to take full advantage of the good old days
when surpluses were plentiful and the economic future was bright. They
effectively demanded politicians agree to contracts for higher union
wages and benefits. Creating a situation that was simply not
sustainable over the long-term.
In 1999, California legislators, including many Republicans, felt very
generous with the public’s tax dollars and created “three at fifty” for
public safety workers. SB 400 allowed these government employees to
retire as early as age 50, well over a decade before their counter-parts
in the private sector, and calculate their annual retirement pay at
three percent per year or 90% of their final year’s pay. With the
ability to spike final year’s pay based on over-time, vacation and sick
leave time, uniform allowances, etc., many former government employees
now earn more retired than when they worked. There was a domino effect
of this incredibly generous law resulting in local communities jumping
on board to stay “competitive” by offering local public safety
personnel, including lifeguards, the same great deal. Thousands of
state and local employees are locked into generous pension contracts
which the courts have decided cannot be broken despite the lack of
budgets to pay for them.
The situation in Newport Beach offers a window into how cash-strapped
cities are being forced to deal with the problem. Rather than change
the current compensation and pension structure to reflect leaner
budgets, as would happen in a private sector company, union mandated
contracts simply force cities to cut staff and services, usually from
the bottom up. It is the inflexibility of laws governing public unions
that led to the situation in Wisconsin where Governor Walker sought to
change the collective bargaining rights of government employees over
benefits in order to bring some sanity into the budget process.
The real problem for government and taxpayers is the pension liability—
the amount pension funds are unable to cover due to declining investment
funds, which by law, puts taxpayers on the hook to make up the
difference. According to a Stanford University study, California
taxpayers are facing a pension liability that could exceed $500 billion,
a figure the non-partisan Little Hoover Commission says will “crush”
government.
As bad as Newport Beach’s situation is, it pales in comparison to some
other cities in California. The city of Fresno currently spends 53
cents of every payroll dollar on pensions. The state average is 31
percent and is expected to rise significantly in the next few years.
Ultimately, as the system is currently structured, everyone but a few
privileged retirees will lose. Government will try to raise revenues by
increasing taxes on Californians who are already the highest taxed
citizens in the country, essential services will have to be cut, even
essential government employees will have to be laid off, and the public
will become increasingly enraged as they learn that 50 year-olds, who
are fully capable of working, are living off golden parachute
retirements at the expense of the taxpayer and the community services
they thought they were supporting.
The City Manager in Newport Beach is proposing to cut over 25 percent of
the full-time lifeguard staff, believing the winter work can be done
with fewer employees. If that is the case, simple efficiency and
fiduciary responsibility with tax dollars should be enough to compel the
city council to vote in favor of this change. The Newport Beach City
Council will consider the Manager’s proposal at its Tuesday, May 10th,
meeting. The budget is ultimately adopted in June. Unfortunately, the
underlying problem of overly generous compensation, early retirement
incentives and taxpayer obligations to cover lifetime health benefits
and “limousine” pensions is not being addressed. Without immediate
reforms future staff cuts are inevitable and will be much more painful
for this city than just laying off a few lifeguards.
Until local and state governments everywhere stand up to the public
employee union bosses and bring some sanity back into the system, these
problems will only persist and will likely get worse. Government must
realize that taxpayers are no loner willing to throw it a life preserver
to escape drowning in a pension tsunami. | n***b
发帖数: 5914 | 2 这算什么， 你看看弯曲有多少警察队长和大队长50来岁就每年拿着10万退休金然后又
去别的law enforcement agency 继续再拿10万年俸呢 | m*****y
发帖数: 2424 | 3 And those bastards in Sacramento want to raise more taxes? Fuck no! | t******t
发帖数: 2404 | 4 什么情何以堪, 你要那么多钱干嘛, 生不带来死不带走. 够花就好了. | i******s
发帖数: 8734 | 5 12w 就够花了？
远远不够呀
【在 t******t 的大作中提到】
: 什么情何以堪, 你要那么多钱干嘛, 生不带来死不带走. 够花就好了.
| s*********1
发帖数: 1166 | 6 They give money to their children, you idiot.
【在 t******t 的大作中提到】
: 什么情何以堪, 你要那么多钱干嘛, 生不带来死不带走. 够花就好了.
| c**l
发帖数: 9003 | | o****e
发帖数: 4946 | 8 要赚钱，还得要经商
【在 c**l 的大作中提到】
: 所以要讲政治，不能只闷头打工。
| t******t
发帖数: 2404 | 9 你孩子又不是白痴, 自己不会赚钱呀.
【在 s*********1 的大作中提到】
: They give money to their children, you idiot.
| a*****g
发帖数: 266 | 10 Lifeguard 上个大学,培训一下,就能做硅工
硅工再上个大学,培训,也当不了Lifeguard |
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