The following letter to the editor was published in the El Segundo Herald newspaper (HeraldPublications.com) on Thursday, November 17, 2011 in the Letters section on page 2. The El Segundo Herald has a strict 250-word limit.
New Contracts Unsustainable
Councilman Fisher claimed city employee unions took a nine percent salary cut. This is untrue. The new union contracts are still excessive and unsustainable. They don’t even rollback the huge 11 to 23 percent pay raises Councilmen Busch and Fisher gave the fire and police unions during the recession, on top of their already excessive and unsustainable salaries and pensions. And the new contracts include three different pay raises plus a guarantee of no layoffs for three years.
The maximum and average total annual compensation were $338 thousand and $202 thousand for firefighter union members, and $304 thousand and $178 thousand for police union members (previous contract). The city paid maximum and average individual annual pension contributions of $66 thousand and $40 thousand for firefighter union members, and $77 thousand and $41 thousand for police union members.
The firefighter and police union pension costs are excessive and unsustainable because they are based on excessive and unsustainable salaries and pension benefit formulas. All firefighters and police can still retire at age 55 with up to 90 percent of their single highest pay year as their annual pension benefit, plus free medical insurance for life.
However, firefighter and police retirement ages are easily circumvented by disability retirements. Many common health ailments are legally presumed to be job-related disabilities for firefighters and police under laws for which their unions lobbied. About 55 percent of all El Segundo firefighter and police retirements over the last ten years have been disability retirements, making half their pension income free from federal and state taxes.
Michael D. Robbins
El Segundo Police Officers' Association (ESPOA) Exposed