Governing magazine reports that government workers in California are retiring at an accelerated pace due to the State’s budget problems. Reasons cited include mandatory furloughs which translates into pay cuts, layoffs, increased workload for those who remain, media and public backlash and greener pastures – some with a growing Federal government.
The article says that in California local government worker retirements have risen 17% so far this year, and State government workers are retiring at a 13% faster pace. In contrast, government workers nationally are tending to postpone retirement, not retire sooner.
While some want to shout Hooray! for these departures, the article points out that local and State governments are ill prepared for the loss of history and experience that is now occurring, referring to it as a “brain drain”. (Of course, there are those who find it hard to believe that any public sector employees possess enough brain power to be categorized as a loss).
Presenting a contrary view, the Governing article quotes a UC Davis Professor of Finance and a “pension expert” as saying that the current California unemployment rate of 12% should not make it difficult for the State to find replacement employees.
So are we losing knowledge and skill that will further erode the service of government that we already complain about? Or is it rats leaving a sinking ship and we should wonder even more about the ship? Good riddance or good grief? What say you?
They are leaving because elected bodies have approved absurdly high pension packages — more than 8,200 California government workers retire with more than 100K a year, plus COLAs, health care, etc. They are taking accelerated retirements perhaps because of the furloughs, etc., but government workers have faced few of the problems of the private sector. In fact, the state is still hiring. They can retire at 50 if they are public safety workers and 55 if they are general workers — with 80 percent or more of final year’s pay. Many of the retirees will simply take vacant government jobs and double up on their income. We need less government and then there will be no “problem.” In the meantime, no reason to cry about their tough plight.
Greenhut what is your deal?
I agree there are far too many public retired employees getting an obscene amount of retirement money but I don’t know if your numbers are anymore exact than the quote From your own newspaper dated May 15th By TONY SAAVEDRA and RONALD CAMPBELL:
An Orange County Register examination of California Public Employees’ Retirement System records shows that 4,817 of the 476,000 retirees in the system make more than $100,000, and 24 have pensions in excess of $200,000.
Whatever the exact figure is, using your numbers, that still leaves roughly 390,000-400,000 retired employees NOT making such an obscene amount.
Yes I’m a retired public employee from a school district and I don’t make half the amount you are bitching about. Apparently neither do the other 390,000-400,000.
Speaking for myself when I took my job 28 years ago I never even considered what the retirement plan was and back then it was nothing to rave about. In fact neither was our hourly wage compared to the private sector. About the only thing we were certain of was that our retirement was secure no matter how much or little it turned out to be. No one in their 20’s gives much thought to retirement! At least I didn’t.
Like most of the other 400,000 public retired people I didn’t ask my retirement be upgraded but it was decent that our hourly pay came up to par with the private sector as the years progressed.
If you think the majority of us are living a great life, think again. We aren’t doing bad that is true, but get your facts straight.
Retirement is based on the number of years worked and salary is averaged over the last 3 years of employment, which are normally the highest anyway. The cap is different for different contracts. Most public safety have a cap of 90% based on working a full 30 years. (3% at 50-55 or 60 depending on the plan). School employees have 2.5% at 55.
Many of these plans do not provide lifetime health insurance after retirement either. The length of time is also based upon the number of years worked and the employee still pays for it as a deduction as if they were still working. That doesn’t include co-pays and yearly deductibles we still have to pay as well.
When the earned years run out you buy your own insurance and if you are old enough you go on medicare like anyone else. In many cases retirement is also not forever either unless you are medically retired. And finally your spouse does not get your full retirement when you die. Depending on selectable options the best a spouse can get is half or less after the retiree dies.
Is it better than private sector? No doubt. Are some abusing it with obscene amounts? Absolutely and that needs to be addressed. But get off the majority of us who did nothing wrong except take a blue collar job.
Welcome to OJ, Mr. Greenhut!
Regarding the numbers, the exact number of 100K Pension Club members for the CalPERS system is 51,15 per Marcia Fritz’s Californians for Fiscal Responsibility. The numbers soars over 8,000 when you include the other government retirement systems, such as OCERS. My facts are completely straight. Public safety officials, for instance, retire using the LAST YEAR’S pay level and in most instances the agency (taxpayers) pay the ENTIRE contribution amount. OCEA members base their retirement on the last three years and employees pay a large contribution. But this is unsustainable — look at the unfunded liabilities. By the way, CalPERS’ chief actuary, Ron Seeling, used the term unsustainable, so this isn’t me spouting off. By the way, many public employees — the majority in some agencies, such as CHP — use dubious pension-spiking formulas to boost their pensions, often to levels above their final year’s pay. I can provide you all the documented info you would like on these topics. And thanks Red Vixen — although I’ve posted here before and read it all the time!
And thanks Red Vixen — although I’ve posted here before and read it all the time!
I will have to pay greater attention to that! “Some” bloggers out there hate OJ, it’s nice to see a blogger fan 😉
As an aside: You ever do any downsides-to-homeschooling stories?
I know of a homeschooling mom that plays World of Warcraft with her homeschooled children. ALL DAY. Every day. It’s alarming to think of that kind of “education” happening on a larger scale.
I appreciate you qualifying your numbers. I was using PERS since that is the system I deal with. Since every agency has its own contract I can’t speak to every one obviously. I will say that the one I retired with prevented pension spiking by allowing only base pay formulas and not including overtime or any other method to spike the years used for the final average.
When you include the other retirement systems you should also include the other people retired that are not in the 100k or 200k ‘club’. The only numbers I have seen are admittedly PERS and those numbers appear to be about 1% of retirees in this exclusive neighborhood. Again I agree with you that these retirements are excessive, but I would maintain that the majority are not overall and it is not fair reporting to ignore that.