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Archive for the 'Big public pension club' Category

The $100,000-plus pension club in Garden Grove, Huntington Beach and Irvine

November 12th, 2009, 5:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

retirement-beachSince September, the number of people in California’s $100,000-plus Pension Club has leapt 1,000 - to 6,133.

What’s behind that rather startling 20 percent jump in how many California Public Employees Retirement System retirees bring home more than $100,000 a year? Info on judges has finally been added to the list, says Marcia Fritz, president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.  CalPERS had omitted them before.

So! We continue working through the CalPERS database of public retirees, and today we look at:

  • Garden Grove, which has  14 people in the $100,000-plus pension club (top guy is fire chief Keith Osborn, $173,399); 
  • Huntington Beach, which has 35 (top guy is police chief Ronald Lowenberg, $151,909); 
  • and Irvine, which has 16 (top guy is administrator Lawrence Larsen, $133,144).

(These folks get this money every year until the day they die.We’ve already visited Anaheim, with 59; Brea, 13; Buena Park, 11; Costa Mesa, 27; Fountain Valley, 11; and CSU Fullerton, 1; bringing our tally thus far to 187. )

We’re going alphabetically, three entities at a time, until we’re done with Orange County’s cities and special districts that are part of CalPERS. (The Register is in a standoff with the Orange County Employees Retirement System to get similar data.)

For those who will assail us for publishing these lists, please understand that this is public information, and do us the kindness of reading why we think it’s important (below) before blasting us with emails. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club • Cities | 230 Comments »

Supes ponder legislation to stop double dipping

October 20th, 2009, 2:47 pm by Jennifer Muir

Orange County could soon back legislation aimed at stopping double-dipping, the practice of retirees collecting their pension, then going back to work for another public agency.

Supervisor John Moorlach today asked the county’s legislative staff to begin looking at crafting legislation that could curtail the practice.

“The people who double dip are not bad people,” Moorlach said. “This is a system that has allowed them to do certain things like this.”

Here’s how the system works and how Moorlach is thinking of changing it: Right now, public employees who retire under one public system, such as the California Public Employees Retirement System, can’t collect a pension and go back to work full time for another agency if the second agency also is under same retirement system.

They can still double-dip, but they can’t work more than 960 hours a year.

But if a Calpers retiree goes to work for an agency like Orange County, which has its own retirement system, they can collect a pension and a paycheck for working full time. That’s why Sheriff Sandra Hutchens and CEO Tom Mauk are able to rake in nearly half a million dollars a piece each year when you add up their pay and pension.

Moorlach thinks there should be a law that requires public employee retirement systems to work together and offer reciprocity instead of allowing folks to collect two checks every month. It would be no different than when an Orange County employee who is not retired goes to work for Los Angeles County: The two retirement systems work together to transfer over pension credit for the worker’s eventual retirement.

So he asked staff to look into crafting legislation and how it would work.

(Worth noting: A ballot initiative by the pension watchdog group the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility also plans to address the double-dipper issue. Moorlach sits on the foundation’s advisory board.)

Board chairwoman Pat Bates said the effort should dovetail with the county’s effort to come up with a policy for the other kind of double dippers — county retirees who come back to work part time. And she asked that staff also look at elected officials with term limits who get a pension.

Posted in: 000-plus pension club • Big public pension club • County government • pensions | 54 Comments »

The double-dipper database

October 16th, 2009, 10:00 am by Jennifer Muir

boomerang1Are you collecting a publicly-funded pension in California but aren’t ready to leave the workforce just yet?

Not to worry. The state of California will help you find a job — and a second paycheck from the government.

Some 4,583 public retirees have signed up for “Boomerang” — the state of California Retiree Job Connection program. State department managers can search the database when they’re looking to hire part-time or temporary employees. The database includes each retiree’s employment preferences and skills.

The practice of collecting a pension and simultaneously going back to work for a public agency is known as double-dipping.

It’s not illegal, but it’s come under fire as agencies across the state grapple with how to reform financially unsustainable pension systems that allow public workers to retire young with nearly the same pay they made when they were clocking in every day.

The Los Angeles Times’ Patrick McGreevy analyzed state retirement data and discovered thousands of double dippers across the state:

State records show that more than 5,600 others are drawing double checks, a figure 57% higher than a decade ago. Meanwhile, billions of dollars — $3.3 billion in this fiscal year alone — are being siphoned from the state budget to cover pension system expenses.

Orange County is even hammering out a policy to address when its retirees can return to work for the county — an effort aimed at avoiding “potential indiscretions regarding the use of retirees.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club | 68 Comments »

O.C. double-dippers rake in nearly a half million a year

October 14th, 2009, 5:13 am by Jennifer Muir

There’s nothing like sticker shock.

That’s just what The Watchdog gets looking at the total amount of dinero county bigwigs like CEO Tom Mauk and Sheriff Sandra Hutchens collect each year.

maukWhen you add up the pensions they collect from their previous place of employment, and the salaries and benefits they accrue in O.C., they’re raking in nearly a half million bucks a piece. (More specifically, Hutchens earns $492,243 a year from her pension, salary and benefits, and Mauk gets $487,805. We’ll break down those figures later in this post.)

Mauk and Hutchens are among the other type of double-dippers working in Orange County. You might remember that the Watchdog wrote a couple weeks ago about Orange County employees who retire, start collecting their pensions, then come back to the county to work part-time.

At the time, many of you asked about double-dippers such as Hutchens and Mauk: People who simultaneously collect a pension check and paycheck because they’ve retired from one government agency, then gone to work for another.  The Watchdog heard your whistle.hutchens

The practice is common among government employees with pension deals that allow them to retire young with nearly the same pay they made during their working years. And it presents prickly ethical questions for the agencies trying to fill their top leadership positions with the most qualified employees while also advocating for pension reform.

“People are gaming the system clearly,” says Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby. “But they’re not the ones at fault. The system is at fault. If we’re incentivizing people to retire early and get a pension, then incentivizing them to get a job with a full-time salary, it’s hard to blame them as individuals.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: 000-plus pension club • Big public pension club • County government • Public safety • pensions | 232 Comments »

Initiative to shrink California’s employee pensions gains steam from public outrage

September 30th, 2009, 5:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

pig_stethComing, most likely, to a ballot box near you in 2010:

The Public Employee Benefits Reform Initiative, whose time may have finally come.

Launched in 2007 - and fading quickly from view after attacks from employee unions - the initiative would do what state and local politicians can’t, or won’t: “Place responsible limits on the defined benefit pension and retiree health care plans that can be offered to new state and local government employees.”

Reducing benefits and hiking retirement ages for new hires would save $500 billion over 30 years, backers say.richman

It’s the brainchild of Keith Richman (right) - physician, former Republican assemblyman and longtime advocate for overhauling the state’s pension system - who thinks now is the time to strike. The fiscal meltdown, and the tens of billions in unfunded pension liabilities that taxpayers would be on the hook for, translate into a public that’s far more savvy (and angry) about the issues than it was two years ago.

(On the  advisory board of Richman’s California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, which is spearheading the initiative, are some familiar names: Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach, and Reed Royalty of the Orange County Taxpayers Association. Jack Dean, president of the Fullerton Association of Concerned. Taxpayers, is on its board as well.)

The foundation is revising the text of its 2007 initiative (which you can read by clicking here) to reflect 2fritz009 realities. In coming weeks, it will post a new version online and invite people to weigh in with suggested changes - including the employee unions (who may well sense an angry mob just beyond the horizon, and be more willing to play ball this time around).

Marcia Fritz (right), who has just replaced Richman as the foundation’s president (Richman remains on its board as a director), says there will be a couple of big revisions in the new text: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club • Employee unions • pensions • • • • • • | 138 Comments »

Uncle Sam pays stingier retirement benefits than the Golden State

September 28th, 2009, 3:01 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

uncle-samThere are those who say not-so-nice things about the federal government and its, er, alleged propensity to waste money. But in our ongoing inquiry into public employee pensions, we’ve learned a rather interesting fact:

Uncle Sam  is stingier than either the State of California or the embattled Metropolitan Water District of Southern California - which offer their employees some of the stingiest public pensions among local governments.

We told you Friday how quite a few local governments in Orange County offer generous retirement formulas to their employees, which amount to 2.7 percent or 2.5 percent of an employee’s salary for each year worked, once the employee hits age 55.

The state, and Met (and a bunch of OC cities and special districts), look stingy by comparison - offering just 2 percent of an employee’s salary for each year worked, once the employee hits age 55.

But even that cheapie retirement formula makes federal retirees jealous - and we know, because we got phone calls from several of them!  Most federal employees get much less (barring folks in Congress, mind you). Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club • Employee unions • Federal government • Federal spending • State government • • • • • | 32 Comments »

OC agencies have some of the sweetest public pensions in California

September 25th, 2009, 5:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

retirementWhich public agencies in Southern California enjoy the most generous retirement benefits?

We’ve been wondering about that - as have many of our readers! - ever since we discovered that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California wants to hike employee pensions by 25 percent.

Most employees at SoCal cities and special districts have far better pension benefits than folks who work for the state of California - or for Met. (Insert song here: ‘Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to work for anything except a SoCal municipal water district!‘)

Let’s see how Bill, our generic retiree, does under the various formulas. Bill makes $100,000 a year, and has put in 25 years of service.

THREE PERCENT AT SIXTY

With the caveat that it depends on just how old you are when you retire and how many years you have in, one could argue that the most generous public pension plans in Southern California for rank-and-file employees (not public safety employees, mind you) belong to three Los Angeles County water districts, which give their employees 3@60. They are:

This means that Bill, at age 60,  would get 3 percent of his top salary for every year worked - or,  75 percent of his salary, upon retirement, every year, until the day he died. That’s $75,000 a year.

TWO-POINT-SEVEN AT FIFTY-FIVE

Next up? The 17 cities and speical districts that offer 2.7@55.  Bill, at 55, would take home $67,500 a year under this formula.

Orange County agencies have a heavy presence here. They are: 

  • The OC cities of La Palma, Orange, Anaheim, Irvine, Los Alamitos, Mission Viejo, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana; the County of Orange; and OC’s Santa Margarita Water District.
  • Outside OC: Rancho California Water District, Santa Monica, Walnut Valley WD, Long Beach, Otay Valley WD, Compton and East Valley MWD.

TWO-POINT-FIVE AT FIFTY-FIVE

Then there are the 2.5%@55 folks. This is the formula Met is wants for its employees (they’ve got 2%@55 now, like state employees). Bill would take home $62,500 a year under this formula. 

There are 24 agencies in this group, and they are: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club • Cities • County government • Employee unions • Special districts • State government • pensions • • • • • | 182 Comments »

The $100,000-plus pension club in Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, CSU Fullerton

September 17th, 2009, 5:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

retirementAs we continue working through the CalPERS database of public retirees who get pensions of more than $100,000 a year, we note something the county has been scolded for lately - something critics like to call “double-dipping.”

That’s when someone retires, and then goes back to work for the same agency. That person collects his full pension, as well as paycheck. (To someone who might be laid off from that department - thus left without pension or paycheck - that can be annoying. Agencies that do this, meanwhile, say it allows them to get the experience and expertise they need, when they need it, with far fewer strings attached than new hires.)

Today we look at Costa Mesa, which has 27 people in the $100,000-plus pension club;  Fountain Valley, which has 11;  and CSU Fullerton, which has but 1. (Last week we visited Anaheim, 59; Brea, 13; and Buena Park, 11, which brings our tally thus far up to 122.)

That one guy from CSU Fullerton, it turns out, retired from the university in 2005 after 31 years of service, and was hired back last fall.

Were going alphabetically, three entities at a time, until we’re done with Orange County’s cities and special districts that are part of the California Public Employees Retirement System. (The Register is in a standoff with the Orange County Employees Retirement System to get similar data.)

For those who will assail us for publishing these lists, please understand that this is public information, and do us the kindness of reading why we think it’s important (below) before blasting us with emails. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club • Cities • Colleges • Who makes more? | 33 Comments »

Union rep blasts so-called “double-dippers” for pension abuse

September 15th, 2009, 6:00 am by Jennifer Muir

nickAn unlikely voice has joined the pension debate, singling out what he calls “pension abuse” in Orange County.

Nick Berardino (left), general manager for the Orange County Employees Association, says the countywide practice of hiring retired county employees to return and perform part time work is wrong. At a time when the county continues laying off employees, it’s not fair to keep retirees on the county’s payroll while they’re also collecting pensions, he says.

“If they eliminate this abuse, they’ll have room for people continuing to work who are paying for their retirement,” Berardino said. “Double dippers under any circumstances are wrong.”

Berardino’s criticism comes amid discussions with the sheriff’s department over plans to lay off  29 non-sworn sheriff’s workers represented by OCEA. He’s hoping to convince the department to find other ways to save money in hopes of saving jobs. And he’s arguing that full time employees pay into the pension fund, while working retirees just suck it dry.

According to a recent county internal audit, there were 212 working retirees last fiscal year, which ended in June. Those are people who have officially begun collecting their pensions from Orange County, but still work for the county part-time collecting an additional paycheck.

(They don’t include folks who have retired from other public agencies. For example, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens (below right) retired from Los Angeles County before taking her job in O.C., Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club • Employee unions • Uncategorized • | 106 Comments »

The $100,000-plus pension club in Anaheim, Brea and Buena Park

September 10th, 2009, 2:42 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

retirementToday we begin working through the CalPERS database of public retirees who get pensions of more than $100,000 a year.

We’ll go alphabetically, three at a time, until we’re done with Orange County’s cities and special districts that are part of the California Public Employees Retirement System. (The Register is in a standoff with the Orange County Employees Retirement System to get similar data.)

There are 59 retirees from the city of Anaheim who are in the $100,000-plus club; 13 from the city of Brea; and 11 from the city of Buena Park. They are retired police chiefs, city managers, firefighters, engineers. Click below to see names and numbers.

We’ve been getting angry mail from folks who are appalled that we printed the names of the 40 people in the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s $100,000-plus club, and we’re sure to get complaints about running names and numbers here. So let’s say this for the record:

If you just can’t wait to see your city’s data, you’re welcome to click here, find your city on the drop-down menu, and look it up now. And here, without further ado, are the details: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Big public pension club • Cities • Who makes more? | 42 Comments »