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California Is in Such a Financial Quagmire That There Could Be Municipal Bankruptcies
Johnny, I have never once said that you get full SS benefits at age 62. What I said was that even though they don't get full benefits, the average retirement age for Americans is still 62. Want me to post the link for the tenth time? San Diego public safety employees may get full benefits at age 50. IF they were hired at age 20 or younger. NO police officer is eligible for that (hiring age is 21 -- 20.5 for the academy) and very very few firefighters are. Yet you speak as though each and every safety retiree is getting 90% at age 50. That's simply not true. I know it, you know it and yet you continue to blather on about it. For reference, according to SDCERS, the average age at hire is 27, meaning that folks aren't eligible for Johnny's beloved 90% until age 57. Add 5 years of DROP and guess what -- they retire at age 62, just like the average American.— April 7, 2008 5:47 p.m.
California Is in Such a Financial Quagmire That There Could Be Municipal Bankruptcies
Justice, I'm not comparing Marine pay to firefighter pay. Marines in general don't get paid squat and deserve a whole lot more. Many folks have erroneously whined that firefighters shouldn't get paid when they're not actually on calls. I'm simply pointing out the absurdity in that statement. SS is basically a Ponzi scheme, which is failing. It actually makes the city's retirement system look good in comparison. SS is going broke. SDCERS is not. You've said that we should switch to a Defined Contribution system, which would likely be in combination with SS. I'm pointing out that you're really not going to save that much.— April 7, 2008 5:39 p.m.
California Is in Such a Financial Quagmire That There Could Be Municipal Bankruptcies
Johnny wrote, "I don't call that work, I call it "on call"." Whatever, Johnny. I've got a radio tethered to my hip waiting to save your butt. Again, I ask, so that means you're unwilling to pay the Marines unless they're actually firing their rifles? And again, Johnny exaggerates the cost of retirement. Last year's total retirement bill was $160 million, including the court ordered amortization for failure to pay in the past. Quick, do some math and figure out what the cost of just the SS supplemental benefit would cost the city as opposed to a full retirement system. That's right, $42 million based on a total payroll of about $626,000,000. So there's a $118 million difference. Now add in the costs of a matching 401K type system. Let's make the match 6.2% to match SS and make the math easy. That's another $42 million. You're already at half the current bill and you haven't added in any admin fees. How many millions would it take to pay a brokerage to manage a fund like this? Reality is that the current system doesn't cost all that much more than a combined SS and DC plan. Sorry.— April 7, 2008 1:08 p.m.
California Is in Such a Financial Quagmire That There Could Be Municipal Bankruptcies
Justice, of course you can't guarantee returns. However, SDCERS has been making in the top tier of all retirement systems for years. The ten year average has been 10%, I believe. That's why I'm against the whole "surplus earnings" waterfall spending. That money should be set aside for lean years. Frankly, I think that the assumed rate on DROP accounts should probably be lowered as well. Or maybe the rate on DROP accounts should simply mirror what SDCERS makes, minus an "account maintenance fee". Nonetheless, DB retirements and DROP are both perfectly sustainable programs. Even the city's actuary Joseph Euschanko (sp?) has stated that while also stating (and I'm paraphrasing here), "There is no material risk of SDCERS failing".— April 7, 2008 12:39 p.m.
California Is in Such a Financial Quagmire That There Could Be Municipal Bankruptcies
Actually, I believe it was 6 in 2007 alone. Oddly, the mayor's numbers were off. I don't recall 2006, but it may have been zero, just like in many previous years. The rate of people leaving is way up. Again, 4 have left in the last month. Three of four had over ten years service here. Two had already been promoted to Engineer. All were paramedics. It's a small number overall, but it's an indicator. My schedule works out to nine or ten shifts per 28 day cycle. Each shift is 24 hours, from 8AM to 8AM. The shifts rotate. 24 on/24 off until you work 4 shifts. They you have either 4 days off or 6 days off. Another work cycle follows, and then another set of days off. The 4's and 6's alternate. Understand that many of my days off are spent at home, sleeping, because I was up most of the night before. It's not that way for all fire stations, but it is where I work.— April 7, 2008 12:32 p.m.
California Is in Such a Financial Quagmire That There Could Be Municipal Bankruptcies
What's obvious to you might not quite meet with reality. It's the folks in the middle who are least able to leave. They'd have to give up their rank and attend an academy again. Once one reaches the chief rank here in SD, they've got sufficient experience to go to a lot of smaller departments -- with less headaches and more pay. There are 7 deputy chiefs in the SDFD. Two and possibly a third are seeking work elsewhere. The gap between battalion and deputy chiefs is small enough that few want the deputy chief or above positions. I'm also wondering why the fire chief makes so much less than the police chief. Very, very few firefighters make over $120K in salary and OT. I looked at the 2006 table. There were 9 members of SDFD of Firefighter II rank that made over $120K. I can tell you looking at their base salaries that those folks are not working as back seat firefighters. They all have specialties of some sort, whether it's on the bomb squad, Haz Mat team, etc. And they're medics, and they work a ton of OT. Obviously, there are more Captains, Engineer and Chiefs that make more than that, but again, all have some specialty and work a bunch of OT. Part of the cost of having specialized people working in an all-risk environment is having to pay them OT to back fill spots. Much of that OT is reimbursed by the feds for work on disasters. Defined benefit plans are perfectly feasible. Again, Social Security taxes the employer 6.2%. The normalized average cost of the SDCERS retirement is 13.7%. We're talking a pretty small margin between a crappy SS 'supplemental' retirement and a good city retirement. There are ways to reduce that gap and still keep the recruiting incentive that goes with a DB retirement. You're going to have a hard sell recruiting, though, when cities such as LA pay more, have 3% at 50, and have DROP.— April 7, 2008 11:55 a.m.
California Is in Such a Financial Quagmire That There Could Be Municipal Bankruptcies
Justice, Where is your "surprising salary for paramedics" located? Here in San Diego? Paramedics, especially in private ambulance companies, make a pittance compared to their job responsibilities. Your argument that firefighters should make on par with paramedics could just as easily be turned around to say that paramedics should make the same or more than firefighters. The shortage of paramedics will likely cause salaries to rise. You're probably unaware that due to a combination of causes San Diego has been down to between 0 and 3 ambulances for the entire city for portions of at least one day/week. This has been going on for a couple of months now. Should we pay more in OT to guarantee more ambulance availability? Pay more to our private partners to incentivize hiring? Tell people they can't go to the hospital? (That's illegal, by the way) Firefighter/paramedics must maintain two separate but complementary job skills. Yet, they typically are paid only about 10% more to do both jobs. That's a pretty good bonus for the employer.— April 7, 2008 10:30 a.m.
California Is in Such a Financial Quagmire That There Could Be Municipal Bankruptcies
Justice, I have no idea if that list is valid. It's not for the city of San Diego. It's for the city of Vallejo, which as we all know has been having financial problems since the city's one industry folded. Vallejo is also in a special situation because over ten percent of their public safety force walked out the door on the same day. They have to pay OT to fill spots until they can hire. Let me ask a few questions. What is the value of the life of your loved ones? Would you rather the city respond to your house to save your child's life in 15 minutes with no overtime? Or pay overtime and be there in four? That's one of the questions facing Vallejo. "Should we close fire stations or pay overtime?" How much would you have to be paid to stay away from your family all year? Those folks had to be working many, many days of OT to make that much. Personally, I think I'd be looking to hire a lot more folks if I was paying that much in OT.— April 7, 2008 10:12 a.m.
California Is in Such a Financial Quagmire That There Could Be Municipal Bankruptcies
In post 65 Johnny wrote, "You left out the cost of benefit compensation which is about 100% the value of entry level FF's and about 75% the value of FF's tapped out on the pay." Really? Why don't you provide proof. A link or something. Maybe some actual numbers. Health benefits remain the same no matter what the rank. Retirement benefits change depending on base pay. Your buddy DeMaio stated that benefits are worth 57% of base pay. You must know something he doesn't. His numbers are suspect, given his motivations. Yours are an outright lie.— April 7, 2008 9:23 a.m.
California Is in Such a Financial Quagmire That There Could Be Municipal Bankruptcies
Johnny, I love your bold statements e.g. "which the vast majority of FD's do NOT require" in regards to hiring requirements. (or most anything else) In fact, most require a paramedic license these days. In San Diego County; Oceanside, Encinitas, Carlsbad, North County, Escondido, Rancho Santa Fe, El Cajon, Lakeside, and others all require a paramedic license. Some of the really big departments do their own EMT training, as we used to here. It's a cost savings for us to require an EMT license prior to hiring. And before you get on another tangent, it's not nearly the cost savings to hire lateral transfer firefighters, even if we could get someone to come here. Either way, you've now posted multiple times that after an academy a person is skilled and that you would only deny pay raises to "non-skilled" employees. Further, the many additional job requirements take the job well beyond just "skilled" and into professional.— April 7, 2008 9:04 a.m.