Dear Editor,
Paying police and fireman 90 percent of their salary on
retirement after 30 years is ridiculous. This percentage should be
cut back to no more than 75 percent.
Dear Editor,
Paying police and fireman 90 percent of their salary on retirement after 30 years is ridiculous. This percentage should be cut back to no more than 75 percent.
For years public servants wanted to have the same benefits as the private sector, which they have succeeded in doing. Now is the time for our public servants to do what the private sector has had to do – cut back. The past five years the Bay Area has been in a recession with 400,000 jobs lost in the private sector. Employees in the private sector that have managed to hold their jobs have seen pay cuts, longer hours and a reduction in their health benefits and retirement.
For the past five years our public servants have demanded and received pay raises and better health and retirement benefits. I know of no company, large or small, that pays their employees 90 percent retirement after 30 years. If public servants retirement was 75 percent at 30 years they would still be far ahead of those in the private sector.
I found it odd when the spokesman for the firemen’s union claimed recently that fireman only have 10 or 15 good years left if they retire at age 55, yet Gilroy just hired a new fire chief that had been retired for only two days from the San Jose Fire Department with 30 years service.
Until changes are made, we shall refer to public servants as public employees and the private sector employees as the private servants to the public employees.
Don and Bev Pierce, Gilroy
