Our View: It’s time to stop giving benefit packages the city
can’t afford to firefighters and police. It’s time to roll back ‘3
at 50′
Whether it’s fear of losing election endorsements or just a lack of commitment to take on a tough issue, it’s clear city officials do not have the political will to take on the too-fat retirement packages that have been given to police and firefighters.
The city is locked into binding arbitration, and now at City Hall, the Gilroy Firefighters Association is pointing at the expensive 3 at 50 retirement program that police officers have enjoyed for the last four years and saying, “Us, too! We deserve what they do!”
And that’s the problem. What Gilroy needs is a paradigm shift.
The retirement package gives police officers 3 percent of their highest salary for each year of service, up to 30 years, and it allows employees to retire at age 50. Firefighters currently have a 2 at 50 program.
Firefighters try to bolster their case by claiming that granting them a 3 at 50 retirement program won’t “bankrupt the city” as justification.
Gee, ain’t that swell … the firefighters fat retirement package won’t bankrupt the city.
Currently, more than 80 percent of the city’s general fund is spent on police and fire. And firefighters want more.
That’s a hard pill to swallow for taxpayers on two levels – civic and personal. The vast majority don’t have anywhere near the lavish retirement package being “standardized” for public safety employees. Many have a modest 401k plan from their private sector employers.
On a civic level, spending an obscene 80 percent of general fund dollars on public safety means that other projects are shelved, and other programs – like recreation and parks – suffer.
When will the fat pension packages stop? Will recreation department workers demand 3 at 50? How about city utility workers? Folks in the city clerk’s office? If “us too” works for firefighters, why not for all city workers? It has to stop.
It’s time for sunset clause. Contracts need to be renegotiated such that the 3 at 50 buck stops now. Even police officers and firefighters currently under contract should receive the negotiated benefit, but no contract going forward should include those benefits for new hires.
Then, the City Council should ask voters whether they want to rescind binding arbitration.
For this dispute, it’s all out of city officials’ hands now. Thanks to binding arbitration, a three-member panel – with the swing vote belonging to panel head John Kagel – will decide what benefits the city must pay to firefighters.
The city will then have to figure out how taxpayers will pay for it.
Let’s hope Kagel keeps Gilroy taxpayers and the long-term fiscal health of the city in mind when he makes his critical decision.
