Posted on 01/16/2007 8:42:50 PM PST by NormsRevenge
California taxpayers forked out $10.2 billion for public employee pensions in 2003-04 and are likely to face even greater liability in future years, according to a study released Monday.
The study prepared for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association by the Center for Government Analysis at Newport Beach analyzed 130 public pension systems statewide and found taxpayer outlays doubled from 1997-98 to 2003-04.
"State and local governments are going to have to put more money into these systems and that means less money for police, less money for teachers, less money for schools, less money for roads, less money for parks and less money for libraries," said Steve Frates, president of the center.
"The total payout to retirees up and down the state was $20 billion in (the 2003-04 fiscal year). ... That's twice the amount of money we spend on police services."
The 159-page study also found Californians paid $37.7 billion in state income taxes and $13.5 billion in police and fire services in 2003-04.
Government offices were closed Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and officials could not be reached for comment.
But Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, said the study conducted on behalf of the taxpayer advocate group relied on "highly selective use of statistics to make its case."
He noted that taxpayer contributions to pension systems soared because of stock-market declines earlier this decade. And since 2003, Brainard said, public pension systems have gained about 50 percent in value while he expects that taxpayer contributions have hit their peak and will now begin to decline.
"I think their use of a particular five-year period to measure taxpayer contributions by state and local governments is somewhat disingenuous," Brainard said. "They don't point out that taxpayer and employee contributions had declined steadily in the 1990s before beginning to rise again in the early part of the 2000s. So they are starting from a low point.
"They also don't point out that employee contributions almost equaled or came close to employer contributions. So public employees in California are contributing to their own pension funds."
In many systems, public safety employees can retire at age 50 after working 14 years and receive a pension equivalent to more than 40 percent of their salaries.
"There are plenty of them that make more than 100 percent of their salaries in retirement," Frates said. "If they are in a system that awards (high percentages of salaries) or grants them rights of selling back vacation time and things like that, by the time they finish their calculations, it will be more than 100 percent of their salary."
In the private sector, employees in many systems can retire at age 55 after 16 years of service and receive 40 percent, Frates said.
In 1998-99, the average annual retirement benefit for a member of the California Teachers Retirement System was $32,472. By 2003-04, it had increased 41 percent to $45,804. In the same period, the average per-capita income in the state increased 18 percent to $35,219.
Good thing these pensioners get to vote. Otherwise reform might be possible.
Instead, taxpayers will continue to be gouged.
No reason that the tax payers should be held to the contracts they make with these retirees, after all who asked then to work for us anyway? /sarc>
John Edwards is right about there being two Americas. He just isn't right about his definition. There is an America who is the worker bees to create the wealth and an America who is the priveliged to consume it.
One more reason why the Leftists love Schwartzen-Kennedy. Spend and Tax. Spend and tax. What a scumbag.
On what planet is this true? I am retiring in April, with 22 years in a very generous private system, at age 62. I will get 27% of my final salary as a pension.
DW will retire about 3 years later, at 55, with 25 years in a CA state system. She will get 50% of her final salary, which is also inflation-adjusted.
OTOH, the state made a Faustian deal with employees decades ago. DW has worked for a salary which is only about 70% of her free-market potential. So, in many ways the higher pension represents a type of deferred compensation.
She works as a professor at a state university, so there is are excellent comparisons between her position and others in the private sector available. Unlike police or emergency service workers.
So? Private sector employees who have pensions (an increasingly rare part of compensation plans) or retirement accounts may have also seen their retirement funds lose value if they were invested in stocks, yet they can't just go around taxing other people to buoy the account balances.
I wouldn't be suprised if he moves to Mass to be their Senator for Life after Ted dies.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
QUOTE: "DW will retire about 3 years later, at 55, with 25 years in a CA state system. She will get 50% of her final salary, which is also inflation-adjusted.
OTOH, the state made a Faustian deal with employees decades ago. DW has worked for a salary which is only about 70% of her free-market potential. So, in many ways the higher pension represents a type of deferred compensation. "
Assuming a $50,000 salary, 50% is $25,000.
Earning 70% of free-market potential means DW's free-market salary would have been about $71,500.
$25,000 is only 35% of $71,500. So not only does DW only receive 35% of their free-market salary (so this is much closer to the magnitude of a true private sector worker), but also, DW has been losing 30% pay each and every year of that prior 16 years of work.
Assuming DW's salary went from $20,000 to $50,000 over that 25 years span, DW has lost aobut $262,000 in earnings over that time, that a private sector employee could have used to fund a 401k retirement plan.
Just thinking out loud here. I always assumed it was common knowlege that public sector employees earn lower salaries in exchange for increased security and better benefits.
I pay too much taxes to be able to take the day off. Couldn't afford it.
Can I get some of that 50% increase since 2003 in my Social Security.....?....../sarcasm...cough..splutter....choke.
That's a bunch of bullcrap.
Taxpayers don't make the damn contracts. The voters do. And they're not exactly the same people.
And what do you tell the 20 year old taxpayer? That some contract was made in 1986, BEFORE HE WAS BORN and now he must pay?
Contracts, bah! People that don't pay a lot in taxes vote with public employees to elect people that will force contracts on a tax paying public. There's no damn agreement. There's only the threat of jail if you don't pay up.
No, you haff eet wrong. In Kal-ee-fornia we haff "spend and fees". Dare. I hope hugh get it now.
Taxpayers don't make the damn contracts. The voters do. And they're not exactly the same people.
And what do you tell the 20 year old taxpayer? That some contract was made in 1986, BEFORE HE WAS BORN and now he must pay?
Contracts, bah! People that don't pay a lot in taxes vote with public employees to elect people that will force contracts on a tax paying public. There's no damn agreement. There's only the threat of jail if you don't pay up.
Did you sign or vote for the Constitution? Do you receive the benefits of that contract?
Funny thing is, the constitution at one time allowed for involuntary servitude (slavery), but was changed because that was wrong.
Now you're using the same document to justify making taxpayers slaves to pensioners.
You'll say anything to rationalize taking someone's money and having it put in your own pocket.
This is a widespread problem, but not yet widely realized throughout the country. Many government institutions have done financial engineering way beyond Enron but the chickens have not come home to roost yet. They will though.
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