There are thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of retired LE in CA. Most are retired from city and county municipalities and most of those retirement plans are nothing like the numbers that have been bandied about. Most of those that you’ve been reading are outliers when you consider the number of retired LE members we have in this state. Most of those extreme cases and the bloc of retired state LE getting hefty pensions are based on union contracts pushed by the unions and greeted warmly by Gray Davis when he was governor. He enjoyed huge kickback campaign contributions from the unions that he used and spread around to other corrupt rats. The debacle between Davis and the state correctional officers union was particularly egregious and was the trigger for the successful movement to recall him. He was first elected governor in 1998 and he had about 5 years to wreak mayhem on the state’s finances through these fat, yummy contracts before he was dragged kicking and screaming from the scene of the crime. Nevertheless, the average state LE pensions resulting from those dirty deals don’t normally result in state LE pensions as high as those that have been pointed to, but they are way too generous nevertheless.
My retirement is not $70k. As I clearly stated, that’s what my husband and I gross together (not including the income from our seasonal business), and he’s not retired and is not a public employee of any kind.
In reply to your statement that we should have no pensions paid by the government, I notice you have no problem with private pensions. Nobody is going to sign up for LE or firefighting without it because they are inherently dangerous jobs. They are not the kind of jobs easily managed from a physical standpoint by people over age 50 or so. They are also highly stressful and the daily ration of adrenalin rushes alone takes its toll. Major burnout sets in at about age 40 or younger. It’s not unlike battle fatigue. Further, in most municipalities, the salary isn’t high enough to make the job worth doing, make ends meet, save for a big ticket item like retirement and some minimal college fund for a kid or two, unless of course you think LE and firefighters shouldn’t have kids because it costs more to raise them, feed them and give them a toehold on a decent future than a LE officer or firefighter deserves to be paid.
One way you can cut pension costs is to create less demand for police and fire. When they break in, harrass you when you’re old, rape your daughter or wife, spray paint your garage, shoot your dog, or catch you off guard, drag you into an alley and beat you half senseless and rob you or stick a gun in your face or your employee’s face, just let it go. Don’t call us. When your house catches fire due to your carelessness or the thugs you got even with for beating down your kid for his lunch money set fire to it in retaliation, let it burn. Don’t call us. See how that works? Less demand for police and fire means less in pensions paid.
I have no problem with private pensions because I believe in freedom. I also have no problem with government employees being paid some amount of money that they would be expected to put into their own pension fund. But then the costs of these pensions would be funded. Now they are not.
Actually people did sign up for these jobs without any promise of a pension for quite some time. Public sector pensions first arose early in the 20th century.
ML/NJ