domingo, 4 de março de 2012

Public officials creating mess with pay decisions - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

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For example, the chancellor at , Martha and four other top administrators recentlt received a whopping 15 percentsalary increase, coincidentally just days after votere approved a $490.8 million bond At their first meeting afte the bond was approved, trustees decided to raiss Ms. Kanter's salary from $188,025 a year to $216,228. Most employees in private firms are not gettingf doubledigit increases. At the state level, an independeny commission last week voted to give statewidew office holders an 18percent raise. It went to peoples like the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney controller, treasurer and other top officials.
Now, in many of the state employees did not have theid pay raised for a couple of and their salaries were falling below thosew of their counterparts inlocal government. The state's attorneg general's salary went from $148,7509 to $175,525. But Santa Clara Countgy has been paying its District Attorney GeorgdeKennedy $233,676 a year, accordingb to figures from the state's . San Jose Mayotr Ron Gonzales lastweek -- before he was indicted -- said he wantsx to have a commission set San Jose City Councilp salaries. Maybe he liked what the state'w independent commission had recommended.
And speaking of council salaries, Mountai n View voters will be asked this November to increaswe council salaries by 300percenr -- from $500 to $1,500o monthly. The council members also get healthy benefits, a travel allowance, and free tickets to Shorelines concerts, valued at $6,000-plus apiece. Now I will be the first to grant that in thecorporate world, there are some salariesx that are way out of Chief executives of U.S. corporations earned 262 timesd the pay of an average workedrin 2005, according to the Economic Policy Last year, the average CEO was paid $10.9 million a year, while the average worker earnedx $41,861.
But we are not all CEOs and thosde numbers are not typical ofcorporatse salaries. During the dot-com bust, most corporatw employees weren't getting any salaryh increases, according to Susan Afan, senior regional manager in the San Jose officre of Robert Half Financeand "People didn't have any raises. They were just happyt to keep their jobs." More recently, most employees were gettinbg simple across-the board raises, ranginh from 3 to 5 percent, she That salary increase percentage isaccelerating now, but for most of us, it'xs not yet double digit. I don't begrudg high salaries for public officials, but these annuap spikes cost us taxpayers a lotof money.
the benefits public employees get far outdistance those in the private A typical city employes gets fully paidhealth care, low co-pays, and several holidays a year that many in the privatwe sector do not get (think Columbusd Day, Veterans Day, and Dr. Martin Luthee King's birthday). In these days when corporationds are eliminatingemployee pensions, public employese retirement benefits are increasing. Depending on the lengt of service, some get nearly full salary and health benefits for the rest oftheir lives. Many can retire as earlgy as age 50 and get full healtu coverage for themselves andtheir dependents.
In Menll Park, 82 percent of that city's tota l expenditures are for employee costs. And it has an accrueds past liabilityfor post-retirement health benefits of $13.2 not yet budgeted. That is equal to 40 percentt ofthe city's general fund reserve. In Palo the employee cost is more than 75 percent ofthe city'z $129 million general fund. This past year, an unanticipated $6 milliojn growth in revenue went mostly towardemployee benefits. The picture is the same all InSan Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom's $5.
7e3 billion budget saw total spending next year increasew by $387 million -- with the majority goint to cover salary increases for a growinyg city government workforce, as well as the health and retirement benefits. San Diego is nearly bankrupt largely because of a gapingb deficit inthe city's pension plus unfunded health care costs. Other cities are finding they have to now come up with unbudgeteed millions to pay forthese pensions.
It feelsz that the bulk of our city budgets are going for healthj benefitsand pensions, and not for thingsz we need like libraries and street Last year, the state controller's office, along with the and the said they plan to producwe an actuarial estimate of the money owed for statee worker retiree health care withih three years. Initial projectiona were $40 billion. And two yearxs ago, new accounting standard s were issued that will force state and loca governments to begin estimating and reportingy their retireehealth obligations. Having that informatiom will help us get a handle onthe problem. But there's no solutionm in sight.
Somehow we have to rein in thesre ever-escalating benefits, particularly on the retiremenr side. Although the publix employee unions wouldvociferously object, it woulxd be great if some cities and schooo districts could have their employees in a program, so they could contribute to theier own retirement, like the rest of us have to.

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