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Outrageous public-employee pension obligations
NY Daily News.com ^ | December 12,1012 | Editorials

Posted on 12/12/2010 3:16:52 PM PST by Hojczyk

Want to know the single biggest reason why New York City is thinking about laying off thousands of teachers, jacking up parking meter fees and scaling back fire protection?

The answer boils down to one word: pensions.

The public pension time bomb that fiscal watchdogs and this page have warned about for years is now exploding - and ripping huge holes in government budgets across the state.

No municipality will sustain more damage than New York City, which next year faces a mind-boggling pension tab of $8.35 billion - a 19% increase in one year - at a time when Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council are forced to hack away at practically every other expenditure.

And the devastating drain will keep getting worse unless Albany lawmakers finally stand up to the public employee unions, dump the current retirement system and replace it with something taxpayers can afford.

Until that day, the city faces agonizing tradeoffs.

Take, for example, the Fire Department's boneheaded plan to charge drivers as much as $490 for responding to accident scenes. Is it any wonder, when the FDNY spends more on pensions and other fringe benefits than it does on salaries?

(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: bailout; corruption; democrats; economy; nea; newyork; newyorkcity; pensions; retirement; taxes; unioncorruption; unions
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To: Anti-Bubba182

The procedure “To file Bankruptcy” should be taken off the books. It does not solve any initial problem of how you got to being bankrupted. It allows debt to be freshly started all over again! It’s a cheaters way out..I don’t like it.


21 posted on 12/12/2010 3:49:26 PM PST by savage woman
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To: C210N

>>67 yo’s might more likely be the administrators, supervisors and fire chiefs.

Those jobs are filled these days with recent college grads and diversity hires. What do white male firefighters do when they can’t carry 100 pounds up a ladder in full gear?


22 posted on 12/12/2010 3:50:38 PM PST by Bryanw92 (Obama is like a rocket scientist....who's trying to do brain surgery with a hammer.)
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To: Bean Counter

Not my state. We will review other alternatives.


23 posted on 12/12/2010 3:53:47 PM PST by richardtavor (One of the rare establishment Republicans backed by the "Tea Party" movement that wants limited gove)
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To: Hojczyk

Congress in the new secession will create a legal mechanism for states to go bankrupt. This will make it possible for them to restructure their debt. We aren’t gonna have a situation where we close schools, open prisons, and shut down everything else so public employee pensioners can play golf 5 days a week. Not gonna happen.


24 posted on 12/12/2010 3:53:53 PM PST by truthguy (Good intentions are not enough.)
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To: Bean Counter

the unions aren’t bringing the states down. they are bringing down the working citizens that are expected to work longer and longer so they can pay more and more tax so the union members can relax in over compensated jobs and lavish early retirements. you have to wonder if the suckers will ever wake up.


25 posted on 12/12/2010 3:54:00 PM PST by paul51 (11 September 2001 - Never forget)
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To: Bryanw92

Spoken like a true government worker or pensioner. There are a lot of creative ideas to fix the problem. Such as let them retire after 25 years and start collecting retirement pay at a normal retirement age, such as 65.


26 posted on 12/12/2010 3:56:02 PM PST by fire4effect
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To: Bryanw92
Like what? Social security? Do you really want 67 year old firefighters responding to your burning home?

How about a 401K plan like everyone else has. Why should public employees be any different? Why should they get a better deal than those of us to pay their salaries?
27 posted on 12/12/2010 3:56:23 PM PST by truthguy (Good intentions are not enough.)
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To: Bryanw92
Why not, were told 65 is the new 50...They hire female firefighters...so what?

If these people in the fire departments can't live with a dramatically reduced wages and slashed retirement pensions, then they should go get jobs that pays more.

They're choking the tax payers off...Enough!

28 posted on 12/12/2010 3:56:37 PM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit.)
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To: Bryanw92
Do you really want 67 year old firefighters responding to your burning home?

What I want is them not retiring at 45 with lavish taxpayer funded packages

29 posted on 12/12/2010 3:59:37 PM PST by paul51 (11 September 2001 - Never forget)
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To: dragnet2
then they should go get jobs that pays more.

Here in central Indiana, they work a 24 hour shift every third day.

Almost all of them have second jobs and make serious income on the combination.

30 posted on 12/12/2010 4:00:47 PM PST by nascarnation
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To: Bean Counter
yah...California has the 8th largest economy in the world, and yet 80% of every dime they spend is on salaries, benefits, and pensions. <<

Yup!...”The Land of Milk and Honey”
The problem is gonna be when they come for our milk and honey...They've squandered theirs...

I want to buy a place out there for 10 cents on the dollar....It will come back over time........ NO BAILOUTS!

31 posted on 12/12/2010 4:01:33 PM PST by M-cubed
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To: fire4effect
Spoken like a true government worker or pensioner. There are a lot of creative ideas to fix the problem. Such as let them retire after 25 years and start collecting retirement pay at a normal retirement age, such as 65.

You pretty much took the wind out of my sail. The problem with pensions like fire and police is not that they pay so much (with some exceptions) but that the people who collect them will collect them for so long. There are many creative solutions to this problem as you have stated. There are ways to defer compensation that are fair and equatable. I know a former police officer who is now a high school teacher. He will retire at 67 or so he says. I'm not sure if he is getting a pension but he was on the force for a long time.
32 posted on 12/12/2010 4:02:24 PM PST by truthguy (Good intentions are not enough.)
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To: highpockets

>> Pay them for what they do not what they say they might do.

You mean that if a crew of firefighters prevents a $200,000 structure from being destroyed, they get 10% of the value, or if they prevent your heart attack from killing you while you go to the hospital, they get 10% of your life insurance and 10% of all your future earnings? They could be like privateers. Arrr!

When I worked in process controls on power plants, I prevented several unit trips would have cost the company over a million dollars each. The second time I prevented a trip, I had paid my salary for my entire career (if I had stayed in that job for a lifetime). Paying employees for what they do and not what they can do is cost-effective for low-skilled employees, but when you get to the critical and/or high-skilled employees, it could really cost you a lot.


33 posted on 12/12/2010 4:02:59 PM PST by Bryanw92 (Obama is like a rocket scientist....who's trying to do brain surgery with a hammer.)
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To: dennisw
Is this really true[?] [Do] You have a [link?]

Yes it is true. Go look it up.

34 posted on 12/12/2010 4:05:54 PM PST by 70times7 (Serving Free Republics' warped and obscure humor needs since 1999!)
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To: Bryanw92
What do white male firefighters do when they can’t carry 100 pounds up a ladder in full gear?

Tell them to go to Walmart and apply for a job, like non-government employee white males do in the private sector that can no longer do their usual physical work...

Government pensions are gang raping the American private sector..

Enough

35 posted on 12/12/2010 4:06:39 PM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit.)
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To: Hildy

You are so right.


36 posted on 12/12/2010 4:08:00 PM PST by MsLady (If you died tonight, where would you go? Salvation, don't leave earth without it!)
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To: Bryanw92

You are intentionally being way too literal. The poster was talking about pay for hazardous duty.

Why not tell us how you would fix the problem, rather than just pick fights? Sounds to me like you are for continuing the ponzi scheme of pensions that will bankrupt the country. I guess you want us to go the way of Greece - without us having anyone to bail us out.


37 posted on 12/12/2010 4:11:01 PM PST by CottonBall
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To: Bryanw92
Fighting fires is not rocket science...In fact many states use prison labor to fight many fires...

If the FF cannot make it on 15 bucks an hour or so, and pay their for their own stinking retirements, then they need to go get better, higher paying jobs...

38 posted on 12/12/2010 4:14:34 PM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit.)
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To: highpockets

Odds are robots and other technology will eventually do a lot of the grunt firefighting work.


39 posted on 12/12/2010 4:23:12 PM PST by wally_bert (It's sheer elegance in its simplicity! - The Middleman)
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To: dragnet2

NY City tax payers are making millionaires out of NYC cops via these lucrative pensions and disability pension fraud.

NY City will pay out $1 million to each retired NYC cop within a few years of retirement. Often, the money is tax free due to 80% of the work force retiring on ‘disability’ in their last year of work.

If you completely eliminated the NYPD and just tallied up the economic losses for 1 year, I wonder if it would come out to the $8 billion needed yearly for pensions?

Not even close.


40 posted on 12/12/2010 4:27:29 PM PST by WaterBoard
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