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 ...
BUMP
most fire calls really are medical emergencies....not blazing fires...that the number of actual fires is tiny compared to the calls that go out?....I think the answer is "yes"....
its funny how we can't have men working into their late 50's or early 60's answering fire calls yet thousands and thousands of nurses work up to 65 and beyond drawing up IV meds, performing cpr, moving and transferring bariatric patients, etc....
cut the pensions out completely...establish 401ks that the govt contributes a certain fair amount too....the more you save and invest, the better you'll do...LIKE THE REST OF US...
As former Speaker of the State Assembly and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown pointed out earlier this year in the San Francisco Chronicle, roughly 80 cents of every government dollar in California goes to employee compensation and benefits. Those costs have been rising fast. Spending on California’s state employees over the past decade rose at nearly three times the rate our revenues grew, crowding out programs of great importance to our citizens. Neglected priorities include higher education, environmental protection, parks and recreation, and more.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703447004575449813071709510.html
>>>>> Thanks. Right you are. This 80% stat which is hard to believe came from Willie Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I guess it is true but I would guess more like 65% than 80% but.... Willie Brown should give his source
Here is a calculator for the Pennsylvania Public School employees. https://www.psers.state.pa.us/Estimator/questions.aspx
When you are playing around with it, “Class T-D Service” means how many years you have put in. Contributions means how much money have you put in, and interest means how much has that money earned in interest. You are allowed to put up to 7.5% of your check into the retirement system.
Basically, if I worked as a Pennsylvania school teacher out of college, I could retire at 55, making $63,000 a year, until I die. That’s right, I would be earned $63,000 possibly for the next 40 years, in addition to pulling down social security. One more thing, your school pension is exempt from Pennsylvania state taxes.
When I was young firefighters fought fires and that is all. I suspect that being a paramedic was considered laughable and unmanly compared to being a firefighter. And there were lots more fires to fight back then so the firemen (urban areas) had their hands full.
There just aren't enough fires these days (for many reasons) so they branched out into the ambulance/paramedic area to preserve those gubbermint jobs pensions bennies
It's gotten so bad you see firehouse cooks strutting their stuff on cooking shows and in advertisements. Obviously too much time on their hands when the biggest firehouse priority is what kind of herbs to use in the veal parmigiana tonight.
They need to do something like prorate the pensions so you draw more if you retire when you’re older.
I have a relative who is a police officer who will retire in a couple years at close to full salary. Meanwhile he’s gone to night school the last few years, passed the bar, and is now job sharing in a second job as an attorney on his days off. When he retires he will become a full-time attorney at around age 48. Meanwhile he will simultaneously be drawing a large police pension for 20-40 years.
Not taking anything away from my relative, who is obviously a hard worker with a lot of initiative, but that kind of pension system is clearly not only nuts, but unsustainable over the long haul.
The bottom line up front is the tax payers will have to support three non-working people for every person on the street (cleaning, protecting, maintaining, fire preventing).
If pensions are given at 25 years of service and the recipient lives for 35 - 45 years you end up with at least two retirees for every worker. Add in the possibility of early retirement due to on the job injuries and that number can double to four or more. Add in the cost of living adjustments and you can easily end up spending over $ 100,000 per street sweeper (the worker gets $ 30K and the retirees split the rest).
If this can’t make it there, it can’t make it anywhere.
It is the only way to put the pensions at a reasonable level.
The cheaters are the ones who got the outrageous pensions in the first place.
I disagree - Filing bankruptsy is not the only way.
And the cheaters are the ones who set up the games
while taking their fair share off the top. If the game
wasn’t there - nobody could play.
What is really obvious is how many people apply when a job opening for a firefighter becomes available. When there are 3-500 applicants per position, we are simply paying too much for a job that is no longer nearly as hazardous as it once was.
We need half the cops in this country. When communities start letting the cops go, short Krispy Kreeme and Dunkin Doughnuts. Finally, get some of that money back.
I like that idea. Have a base salary they get paid for routine work based on the area. If most calls are minor traffic accidents, burnt food, false alarms, etc. pay then for that. If they respond to major accidents that require the Jaws of Life, large house or commercial fires, etc they they get paid more for those calls only. Paying for them to do all those things on every call when most are minor injures or burnt toast makes no sense.
Not as busy either. The vast majority of fire departments are far from being run ragged. One big northern city I used to visit a lot....... Outside one downtown fire department I always saw half the personal vehicles parked there were trucks obviously used for contractor services with ladder racks, large toolboxes and otherwise looking construction related. Meaning the firemen are rested up enough after a 48 hour shift to go out and work a second job mostly off the books. (no taxes)
I can imagine these contracting jobs involve taking care of problems uncovered during a fire safety inspection. And you know that by hiring a city firefighter+ his crew to repair your problem you will be assured of passing the follow-up inspection
The 2001-911 attacks have insulated police and fireman for years from any criticism of them robbing the taxpayers. 250 fireman were killed in one day there. All of a sudden police and fireman were elevated to being essential for public safety against Muslim terrorism and it became harder to resist their outrageous salary/bennies/pension demands
Yup. Firemen especially are starting to enjoy enforcement powers. That swagger is definitely far more common than it once was.
Stop hiring, cut plans,raise retirement age, convert from defined benefits to defined contribution plans, ban double dipping...
Sounds like a plan. Thx!
A Version of the 12 Days of Christmas from the NEA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_zasAMvuy18
Something more like the military system. Retire at half pay at the end of 20 years. Or give them premium pay when they are at their physical peaks and off-set this with much lower retirement pay.
They stand, and watch, and keep people back so they don't get hurt.
Actually, the standard in much of rural America is to simply let it burn. That's also the standard in much of urban America.
“Do you really want 67 year old firefighters responding to your burning home?”
Check your stats, but firefighters are more emergency med techs that firefighters.....Probably 30-40 emergency calls for every fire.
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