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Posted on 09/12/2003 8:41:07 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO -- A stalled, highly controversial bill boosting local and state public safety employee pension caps to 100 percent of workers' final salaries has been quietly resurrected and is advancing at the 11th hour of this year's legislative session.
The proposal, backed by at least one prominent Bay Area legislator but opposed by many cash-strapped cities, originally applied only to local police and firefighters.
It has now been broadened to also allow California Highway Patrol officers and state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection personnel to receive the same pension enhancement -- a move that follows their salary concessions in talks with the administration of politically embattled Gov. Gray Davis.
A spokesman for Davis, who has not taken a position on the bill, did not return a phone call Thursday. Assembly Majority Leader Wilma Chan, D-Oakland, who helped vote the reincarnated measure out of committee Wednesday, also was unavailable for comment. The original proposal, now amended into another bill, was pending in an Assembly committee as the Legislature worked into the night Thursday. Lawmakers are scheduled to adjourn their annual session today but may work into Saturday.
Labor unions that sponsored the measure, authored by Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Santa Ana, argue that boosting the pension limit from 90 percent to 100 percent of an employee's final salary would not cost government any more, since public safety employees would delay retiring to receive the higher pensions.
The Public Employees' Retirement System has determined that the effect of the proposal "is either (revenue) neutral or a cost savings," said Dunn spokeswoman Loretta Donovan.
The reasoning is that employees would have to work an extra three years to achieve the higher benefit level and during those three years, they wouldn't be earning a pension. In most cases, the higher pension they eventually earn would not cost any more over time than is saved by delaying their retirement for three years.
At the same time, supporters say, the bill would improve retirement benefits for workers who have tough jobs and whose risks have grown in the wake of terrorist attacks.
But taxpayer groups and many local government agencies -- including the cities of Fremont and San Mateo -- are opposed to the plan. They believe it would force government agencies into accepting labor pacts that would add to a growing pension burden they fear will force further cuts in services.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association calls the proposal a "ticking time bomb."
Critics also attacked the last-minute timing of the bill and the addition of state public safety workers at a time when the Democratic governor needs their support, as he faces a recall bid, and after their unions agreed to defer wage increases as a means of thwarting layoffs.
The resurrection of the measure by the Democrat-dominated Legislature came amid Republican complaints about Democrats' 11th-hour tactics as lawmakers swept toward their scheduled adjournment today.
Contact Sacramento Bureau Chief Steve Geissinger at sgeissinger@angnewspapers.com .
Republicans said they attribute some of the scramble to the fears of some Democrats and special interests that a GOP governor less inclined to favor their bills might replace Davis after the Oct. 7 recall election.
"Democrats continue their mad rush to push a liberal agenda through the Legislature," Assemblyman Jay La Suer, R-La Mesa, said at one point during deliberations in the lower house on another bill.
Peter DeMarco, a spokesman for Republican leader Dave Cox of Sacramento, said he expected "a meltdown soon" as lawmakers get so far ahead of staff 's ability to provide paperwork that legislators won't be sure what's before them.
The original pension-enhancement proposal, SB 100, stalled in the Senate Appropriations Committee last May.
This week, Dunn "gutted" an unneeded budget bill under his name, SB 53, and amended the language of his SB 100 into SB 53 and added state public safety workers.
On Wednesday, the Assembly Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security Committee approved SB 53 on a 7-0 vote.
As the Legislature worked into the night Thursday, the measure was pending before the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Dunn's aides said they were uncertain when the panel might consider the bill.
Democrats revenge against the voters of California for daring to recall one of their own.
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