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You think only CEOs of big companies get these golden parachutes? $18M for Tony Hayward at BP, $32M for Mark Hurd at HP?
Think, again. The embattled Chief of Police of San Jose, California, Ron Davis, is retiring. Mr. Davis is barely 50 years old. If he lives to an average US male age of 78, he will receive $6,000,000 dollars in pension benefits PLUS life time health insurance for himself and his dependents. – A retirement package is potentially worth $7 to $8 million over his expected lifetime. Given his age, and his recent candidacy for the Chief’s job in Dallas, Texas, we can expect that he will be able to improve on this number.
The Chief is an example of typical public employee retirement packages.
To describe Mr. Davis’ pension as “an example of typical public employee retirement packages” is ludicrous. If anything it is atypical. Yes, there are extremes and yes those extremes need to be curbed and benefits reigned in – BUT – there are tens of thousands to hard-working public sector employees that will retire on very meager pensions and to call Mr. Davis’ pension typical is a slap to every one of those.
If you look up the past city contracts, the general employee and other non-safety bargaining unit raises reflect the annual consumer price index (CPI). Salaries rose between 2% and 3% annually. Over 10 years, that is around 30-40 percent.
In 2005, the average CalPERS monthly employee benefit was $1,673.82 ($20,083 annually).
The primary cause of this mess is NOT your average public employee (our Public Works, Parks & Recreations workers, etc.). It is the safety unions and executives that are the cause. In 2010, the average PERS pension retirement check paid to general public employees earning a 2% PERS pension benefit is earning a mere $25,000 a year.
The Public Safety pension benefit increases passed in 1999 via Senate Bill 400 in California, which offered retroactive benefit increases [3% at 50/55 public safety retirement] to government workers, were supposed to cost $650 million in 2010. The actual costs of SB400 to taxpayers: $3.1 billion this fiscal year and $3.5 billion next year.”