The readers comment was this:
If police and fire are so concerened about getting cut and endangering our city, why don’t they start giving up some of their unrealistic pensions and benefits. The average person doesn’t get health care coverage for life- no matter how heroic they might have been. No city employee should be making over 200k a year and getting continue getting a huge portion of that- years after they have stopped working.
And my reply:
Your questions and statements assume a couple of innaccuracies:
1. Public Safety pensions and benefits are unrealistic.
They aren’t. Most other agencies throughout the bay area offer comparable packages. In most cases the employees pay less - or nothing - toward their pension fund, with the employer taking up the employee contribution. Every single agency also does this while maintaining a higher ratio of officers to citizens than does San Jose. Mayor Reed admitted this the other night on KLIV. The reality is that San Jose isn’t competitive almost across the board, and almost no other agencies are talking about laying off cops. Oakland did and saw an almost immediate spike in crime. Unfortunately, that’s not on the talking points for the City Council.
2. The ‘health care for life’ issues is a canard. This adds, perhaps, a couple of hundred dollars per month to the total value of retirement compensation. Also, we actually pre-fund a portion of this as well.
3. You also state, “The average person…” Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but we aren’t ‘average’. The ‘average’ person can’t make it through the background and hiring process, much less the academy and Field Training. It is a very small percentage of applicants who actually get hired to the position of police recruits. And our jobs are predicated on dealing with people and situations for which the ‘average’ person is ill prepared or disinclined to deal.
4. “No city employee should…” Guess what? The vast majority of us don’t. Certainly your average beat cop or firefighter doesn’t make over $200k. The ones who do are usually those in an ‘executive’ type position. With the PD, that tends to be Division Commanders and higher. Also, pension spiking doesn’t exist within the PD. It’s kind of hard to ‘spike’ your pension when you can only get paid for 6 hours of overtime every two weeks regardless of how much overtime you’ve actually worked.
Please.
I closed the blog with this post, as well:
For the record, I am inclined to agree with you. San Jose’s leadership (and NOT the PD) has been all too willing to bend over backwards and play fast and loose with the law. And the leadership of San Jose has done an appalling amount of damage with their decisions, policies and rhetoric.
With respect to wages, etc…for the record, San Jose’s competition in the public safety industry is pretty stiff. Following are the highlights:
SFPD: Wages $82k+ to $110k+ with 3% @ 50 retirement formula. I believe employee pays 9% to retirment
SCPD: Wages $80k+ to $116k+ with 3% @ 50 retirement formula and 3% COLA and I believe employee pays 9% to retirement.
Fremont PD: $80k+ to $98k+ 3% @ 50 retirement formula and employer pays the employee’s 9% contribution, 13 paid holidays
Redwood City PD: $84k+ to $103k+, 3% @ 50 retirement formula, 14 paid holidays, all uniforms, cleaning and equipment paid for by City
Palo Alto PD: $84k to $112k+ 11 hour shifts including 1 hour paid time to work out, 3% @ 50 retirement formula with city taking up the employee’s PERS contribution, 5% night shift differential, all uniforms, equipment, cleaning paid for by the city.
San Jose isn’t competitive with any of these cities, if for no other reason than, at about 23% retirement contribution vs. 9% max, we pay 250% more (or more) than what other cities’ officers contribute. That on its own works out to adding about $20k to the annual salary.
I questioned Mayor Reed on this topic. He acknowledged that San Jose isn’t competitive and stated that he doesn’t know how other cities compensate their police officers this way. And yet, at the same time, he noted that other cities generate more revenue per capita than San Jose does.
Well, Mr. Mayor, there’s your answer. Revenue. Other cities are more desirable locales in which to do business. San Jose’s economy, by contrast, is moribund. San Jose’s policies are toxic to businesses as is its licensing and fee structure. And, to make matters worse, the Mayor is among the majority of the other city council members who, time and again, vote for zoning conversions, allowing for San Jose’s population to increase while the (potential) tax base decreases.
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