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County Retail Sales Dropping Sharply; Tax Receipts Will Feel It
You do realize, don't you, that this disaster you speak of was an almost negligible increase in benefits? From 2.9999% at 55 to 3% at 55? At age 50 it was a less than 10% increase. And you do realize that the only reason MP1 and MP2 came along is that the city lost lawsuits and increased the retirement as a settlement? Otherwise, you'd be paying 2.9999% at 55 INCLUDING overtime. I agree that McGrory is a thief, but look at why the increases happened.— July 19, 2008 6:32 a.m.
County Retail Sales Dropping Sharply; Tax Receipts Will Feel It
Johnny, Not once have I ever said that I thought sinking money into either of the ballparks was a good idea. Balboa Park is a little different. You've seen me rail against corporate welfare here as much as you. You say that a 90% retirement is unsustainable. Go to the Bloomberg retirement calculator online. Put in working years of 27 to 57 to meet the averages for firefighters. Put in a starting salary of $45K. Put in 20% of salary, which we've seen is what the percentage of retirement is. Use a 10% rate of return, which is less than the average S&P 500 return and less than the SDCERS return. Put in an average salary increase of 3% and a rate of inflation of 3.1%. Don't forget to uncheck the "To include Social Security" box. Oh, and run it out for 35 years of retirement. Surprise! There's still money left at age 92, or about 10 years after the average death age. It's perfectly sustainable. The only thing that's hurting the cash flow now is amortization... and even that's sustainable. Remember, the entire retirement bill is about 5% of the city budget.— July 17, 2008 6:43 a.m.
County Retail Sales Dropping Sharply; Tax Receipts Will Feel It
Fred, when you say, "Remember what actually happened" you do mean, "Remember what the DA has accused people of", don't you? The state case has stalled out and the fed case is awaiting the results of the state case. Why? Because the cases are pretty flimsy. Let me ask a quick question. If I recall, city council meetings are typically on Tuesdays. What did they discuss yesterday? Was there anything that may have a large financial impact to the city? All of the big picture retirement "stuff" was docketed, discussed, etc. many, many, many times. Where was your outcry then? And no, I don't look at the docket every week either. (As it turns out, the council discussed several retirement issues yesterday) It's interesting that tax receipts are going up more than salaries, yet people keep pointing at the retirement system as the one thing that's breaking the city. That certainly isn't true. The retirement system is only about 5% of the city budget.— July 16, 2008 3:31 p.m.
County Retail Sales Dropping Sharply; Tax Receipts Will Feel It
Jim, Behind the voter's backs? Each and every one of these benefits was discussed at several council sessions. Nothing was done in closed session. The city cannot afford the benefits because they choose not to. The city dedicated $25 million of public money to the Balboa Theater. A noble cause, but perhaps not the best use of public funds in a cash strapped city. That's simply one example of the city choosing to spend money on something other than it's contractual obligations.— July 16, 2008 12:32 p.m.
County Retail Sales Dropping Sharply; Tax Receipts Will Feel It
Well, Johnny, I don't know what to tell you. Don't get upset with me, get upset with whoever certified the CAFR. I have yet to quote anything here that didn't have a source you could verify yourself. Have you done the same? In the meantime, Harvard has lauded SDCERS for having one of the highest rates of return of any municipal retirement system. Half of the money in the system is from investment returns. What percentage of the money in Social Security is from investment returns?— July 14, 2008 10:18 p.m.
County Retail Sales Dropping Sharply; Tax Receipts Will Feel It
Well, let's see. Johnny Vegas says that pension costs are 7-8 x my estimate of 16% of salary. So 16% x 8 = 128%? You're saying that the pension costs more than salary? By 30%? Or are you exaggerating again? Wait.. my mistake... the actual figure is 20%. That's based on the 2007 SDCERS CAFR page 51. Hey, I said I was working from memory. That's the "normal" figure. The amortization is another 26% on top of that. Again, there would be no amortization if the politicians had actually paid the bill. So, the total for retirement is about 47% of salary. Add in health care and you're over the 50% mark. That's why OT is cheaper. But not by much. Also remember that retirement is based on base salary, not OT. I don't know how much, if any, the city pays above what it gives employees as a health care allowance. I'm guessing it's not much. If it was, they'd make the incentive larger to not take city insurance. Instead they're doing everything they can to ensure that every employee is in their plan.— July 14, 2008 3:21 p.m.
County Retail Sales Dropping Sharply; Tax Receipts Will Feel It
Johnny, Pension benefits are shown. You just have to know where to look for them. Again, the SDCERS CAFR is public information and posted on the web. If you look there, you'll see the percentage of salary that goes towards retirement. You keep throwing numbers out indicating that retirement is 100% of compensation. That simply isn't true. I can't recall the numbers off the top of my head, but it's around 16% on average for safety personnel. Vallejo is not San Diego. Their tax base is smaller, their cost of living higher, their salaries higher. Plus a lot of the personnel budget you're seeing includes one time payouts for folks who are retiring. Heck, Don argues that we shouldn't compare salaries to the Bay Area. And... as you mentioned you're failing to accommodate for fuel, insurance, electricity, new fire engines, hose and all of the other 'stuff' that comes out of a budget. Did the Vallejo budget have a one time boost to purchase new fire engines at $400K each? If you want another interesting statistic, divide our budget by the number of runs the department does in a year. That's the approximate cost per run. I think we'd be pretty justified in charging business owners that amount for false alarms, etc. The salary survey I'm referring to included only fire agencies. The survey was for 2006. Every fire agency in the survey except SDFD got a raise in 2007. That put SDFD even further behind.— July 12, 2008 9:34 a.m.
County Retail Sales Dropping Sharply; Tax Receipts Will Feel It
Don, Sorry, apparently while you were being the grammar police you weren't editing for ambiguities in your statement. ;)— July 12, 2008 9:21 a.m.
County Retail Sales Dropping Sharply; Tax Receipts Will Feel It
Don, so you don't think fire chiefs or captains "make" their money? Why? Just because you didn't make that? Just how many lives are you responsible for each and every day? You might reach thousands writing and Johnny might affect the same number litigating... but I'm talking making actual life and death decisions.— July 11, 2008 5:51 p.m.
County Retail Sales Dropping Sharply; Tax Receipts Will Feel It
Remember "A City in Motion"? Johnny, I don't mind making all the dollars public. It'll show your crap about firefighters making $200K is just that. Chiefs and a few captains maybe, but not the vast majority of employees. Maybe they'll also show what percentage of the OT is reimbursed by the state or the feds. Right now we have about fifty employees fighting fire throughout the state. Their OT and the OT for the folks filling their spots here (and protecting you) is all reimbursed. Don, the study I'm referring to was done in 2006. I'm not sure how much more recent you want... if it helps, all the other agencies in the survey got raises in 2007. SDFD did not. The salary survey was pretty objective in that it took a look at all the different variables in pay -- salary, percent of retirement pickup, amount paid in health care, etc. It was biased in that they threw in agencies such as Phoenix and Houston while leaving out SF and SJ.— July 10, 2008 7:32 p.m.