The following will be published as the Sentinel Editorial Sunday, July 25:
Be thankful you don’t live in the Southern California city of Bell.
In a year when public employees’ salaries and unsustainable pension benefits have become front-page news, the story of the highly paid Bell employees will stand as a symbol of a broken system.
Ask not, however, for whom the bell tolls, for it also can toll for all of us.
As shocking as the Bell revelations are, and they’re almost beyond comprehension, the warnings about public employee salaries and pension benefits affect most Californians, including taxpaying residents of Santa Cruz County.
The pensions, and sometimes the salaries, of public employees have reached levels private sector workers could only dream to attain.
The Bell situation, however, is more of a nightmare that should awaken anyone sleeping through local government meetings, unaware of how taxpayers’ money is being spent.
Thursday night, three top Bell administrators were forced to resign after newspaper stories revealed their salaries and pensions. The city manager, assistant manager and police chief were “earning” a total of more than $1.6 million a year.
The suddenly retired city manager, who was making nearly $788,000 a year for running a city of 40,000 people, will receive a state pension of $650,000 a year for life, making him the highest paid retiree in the state system. The police chief will receive a pension of a mere $411,000 a year.
It doesn’t stop there. The mayor and three city council members in Bell, one of the poorest cities in the LA area, are making around $100,000 for a part-time job. According to the Los Angeles Times the highly paid council members were able to exempt themselves from state salary limits through a little-noticed city ballot measure during a special election that attracted fewer than 400 voters.
Now a newly formed community group — the Bell Association to Stop the Abuse — has called on the council members to resign or face recall.
The outrageous salaries and benefits in Bell should not obscure the fact that across the state, unsustainable employee costs are breaking the bank for countless local governments. The salaries and benefits were negotiated with public employee unions when state and local governments were riding high.
Public employee pensions, for instance, have been part of this year’s budget discussion in Santa Cruz.
Earlier this month the city and police management agreed on a two-tired pension plan for future hires — if the union representing sergeants and the rank-and-file also sign on.
Under the old agreement, for instance, Santa Cruz police and fire employees can retire at age 50, earning an annual pension equivalent to 3 percent of their highest annual salary multiplied by the number of years worked.
For a 20-year firefighter or police officer whose highest annual salary was $100,000, that means $60,000 a year for life starting at age 50.
The pension for non-safety employees is 2 percent of top salary multiplied by years of service, starting at age 55.
The city this year estimates its unfunded pension liability — the money it would have to come up with to pay off these pensions — at $37 million.
Similar negotiations with labor groups to create a two-tiered retirement system are taking place in other financially hurting cities, and, despite the potential for creating bad morale among those who will get less, it’s simply the only alternative to financial ruin.
One other point bears mentioning: the only check on out-of-control spending and concessions is a well-informed public. That’s one reason the Sentinel has been publishing, and will continue to publish, detailed records of public employee salaries and benefits.
After all, it’s your money.
