Fat And Happy: California Flexes It's Muscles
The Governator as a young boy in Austria. More reasons NOT to bail out California.
We covered this topic in more detail late last week. More evidence has emerged to illustrate the level of fiscal insanity that can be found in municipalities across California. The abuse of the public purse is rampant. It is absolutely vital to taxpayer fairness and integrity that bloated states be forced to pare back and cut their egregious spending during the recession. Pension corruption (what else do you call legal theft?) is commonplace and, sadly, almost the norm. The taxpayer is getting screwed left and right, and not in a good way.
Read about the City Manager from tiny Vernon (in LA County) making 600k per year after the jump. And that's just the start. Warning: unlike jr. Scharzenegger above, it's not so pretty.
Word to the wise for those who attack me for criticizing police and fire pensions. Neither occupation is even in the top 10 of most dangerous careers, so back off.
From SF Gate:
There was a time when the "$100,000 club" referred to San Francisco city workers making six figures. These days, it refers to the 480 retired city workers or their survivors who are knocking back $100,000 or more a year in pension money.
At the top of the heap is former Police Chief Earl Sanders who, after serving 40 years in the Police Department, gets an annual pension of $222,768.
Sanders' predecessor, former Chief Fred Lau, who retired after 31 years on the force, pulls down a $154,241 pension - even as he earns another six figures as head of security at Oakland International Airport.
Lau and Sanders are among 146 former city cops or their survivors in the $100,000 pension club. Both are also members of a more rarefied club - the 15 ex-cops pulling down pensions of $150,000 or more.
Over at the Fire Department, 246 former employees or their survivors are receiving pensions of $100,000 a year or more - with 15 topping $150,000.
The remaining 88 members of the $100,000 club are former department heads or career executives.
Soon, a new name will be atop the list of highest-paid police pensioners. When she leaves the Hall of Justice sometime this year, Police Chief Heather Fong, 53, will have 32 years under her belt - and will be pulling down about $229,500 a year for life.
And there will be many others joining the club in the years to come, thanks to changes that voters approved in the aftermath of 9/11 that make police, firefighters and other public safety workers eligible to retire after 30 years on the job and receive retirement money equal to 90 percent of their highest paycheck.
Additional pension sweeteners for all city workers approved by San Francisco voters last June could drive pension costs for City Hall, the school district and courts up to $215 million a year, a $100 million increase over last year - although that number could drop with anticipated layoffs.
As pricey as the city's pension contributions may sound, retirement system chief Clare Murphy said San Francisco's burden is nowhere near as bad as those being shouldered by other cities and counties that negotiated their pension benefits without voter approval.
Statewide, the CalPERS system - which handles retirement for local and state employees - has 4,818 members earning annual pensions of $100,000 or more.
The highest-paid is Bruce Malkenhorst, who, as the former city manager of the tiny industrial town of Vernon (Los Angeles County), earned $600,000 a year.
His retirement pay: $499,674. Which he continues to collect, even as he's under indictment for allegedly stealing city money.
By the way, Malkenhorst's son, Bruce Jr., now has his dad's old job.
Jun 2, 2009 at 1:45 PM
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